#I am also a grubhub driver now

[sillimancer]

food stamp card arrived, god bless

[oops-prow-did-it-again]

Why You Should Rethink DoorDash, and Other Courier Apps: From a Driver Based in the USA

So this is part rant and part psa. I have been doing delivery work as a gig driver for DoorDash for years bc of various personal circumstances. I'm hoping to get a CDL in the near future so I can move on to a better job, but that's besides the point for right now. Further disclaimer: I only know the intricacies of DD. I do not know how precisely GrubHub, Uber Eats, etc, work, but I presume they work much the same, since I see the same complaints come from those services too.

This is in no particular order but please, if you have the time, please read it through. I'll preface this by saying I am not going to be rude or bitchy about customers or merchants here, this isn't just me whining, I'm just trying to give a level recount of my experiences with DD, and often, they are just... Not great experiences, unfortunately.

I don't know how many people realize this, but drivers get offered a base pay of $2.00-$2.50 per delivery, depending on the area. This is all DoorDash HAS to pay a driver. Every time you submit an order via DD, it gets spit out onto drivers' apps with that base pay + tip displayed. Meaning if you do not tip, every driver sees only $2-$2.50 to deliver your order. Sometimes, if enough drivers decline an order enough times, the DD algorithm will start to slowly raise the base offered pay... by about $0.25-$1 per round depending on the mileage it takes to deliver that order. This means if you do not tip, your order will most likely be extremely delayed, or bundled with another order, which will make it late, and your food cold.

**Emphasizing this: although I find low tips frustrating, I am NOT personally faulting anyone for not tipping.** DD should just pay their drivers, and it shouldn't be up to you, especially bc ordering delivery is so damn expensive. But I'm telling you this bc they certainly don't advertise it, and many people in my experience are shocked by now little it pays. Many drivers will not accept an offer that's less than $1-$1.50/mi. This means if your restaurant is 8mi away from you, and DD pays the minimum $2, you need to be tipping at least $6-$10 for most drivers to even consider it, or else it will be sitting for a long time or get bundled with a double delivery (more chances for mistakes + takes longer for the food to get to you).

Furthermore, in certain localities, DD offers an hourly rate for its drivers. This sounds good on paper, but keep in mind that this does not include gas money, and only accounts for the time from a delivery being accepted to the time it is dropped off. If you are delivering in suburbs or, god forbid, rural areas, you will spend a lot of time not making money but still burning gas returning from a home to where restaurants are so you can get your next delivery. While the app may say something impressive like $14-$17.25/hr, in reality, it's usually half that or less when you factor in downtime.

DD orders are also exorbitantly more expensive than if you buy directly from the merchant because DD charges the merchant 15-30% of the menu price to use their platform, and the merchants pass this on, usually plus a little extra, to you. This is before you even consider "delivery fees," which are not paid to drivers and are pretty much exclusively pocketed by DD. Also, DD will often choose a store farther away from you (so, say, a McDonald's that's 5mi away from you as opposed to the one that's 1mi away) specifically so they can charge more on fees. *Sometimes* this is just bc the closer store isn't enrolled in DD, but oftentimes, it isn't.

ADDENDUM ON THIS, HOWEVER: If you are ordering directly from a merchant that you know does not have actual in-house drivers, but is offering delivery anyway, like Wendy's or McDonald's, understand that these merchants are going to send these deliveries through to DD or Uber Eats. These orders have cryptic names for items on the Dasher's end and often we cannot contact you if there's an issue with your order, because the phone numbers provided to the Dasher's app never work. If you know for certain the merchant has its own delivery team (most pizza places, Chick-fil-A, Panera, etc), please order delivery directly through them, but if you know they do not (Wendy's, McDonald's), DO NOT ORDER delivery through their apps. It displays poorly on the drivers end and is often more expensive and a less ideal experience for you.

DD does offer DashPass, a subscription service that, for $9.99/mo, says it slashes delivery fees and other costs. Not really; the amount you pay in DashPass, especially the longer you have it, often exceeds the fees you would pay if you simply bought orders without DashPass. Also, it will advertise at you constantly via notifications and emails which will make you more likely to spend more on delivery that you wouldn't have in the first place, further eroding whatever savings you'd gain from DashPass.

DoorDash also can do a thing where they enroll stores in their platform without that store's permission. These orders require Dashers to use a red card, a notoriously buggy debit card that is supposed to get loaded with the amount of money it takes to cover the order by DD. The restaurants do not get any extra profits from these, and many store managers would love to prevent this from happening, but it requires legal action that is infeasible for most stores to do on their own. This causes friction and conflicts between store managers and drivers, delays for the customers, and solely profits DD.

DD ***does not*** reimburse for any amount of gas or car repair costs. Instead, they offer a company debit card which has tons of hidden fees for their drivers, and gives a small % cashback on gas. It is an overwhelmingly bad deal, but they use it as a shield against accusations that they don't support drivers against the cost of gas. They do...but only if you let them be your bank. Otherwise, you get your pay the Tuesday after the week you worked, or you can cash out immediately via the FastPay feature - for a $1.99 fee out of the money you earned.

DD support teams (and I know this is not unique by any measure to DD but it feels worth mentioning) are based in Taiwan, I believe, as well. I have absolutely nothing against the support teams, for they are doing the best with what they have, but DD absolutely weaponizes language barriers and the difficulty in communication to try to silence customers and dashers alike when there is a problem. DD seems to hope that if you get frustrated enough trying to talk to support (once again, not the workers' faults, the call center is absolutely being exploited too, I just don't have firsthand enough experience with that work to talk about the specifics of how), you will simply give up and not bother trying to seek a refund or half pay.

On that note, if a delivery has to be canceled for whatever reason, your driver will not get paid regardless of the time they spent on it. Very very rarely they will give "half pay," which is half of the promised payout, but only if you were on the delivery for an excessive length of time (i.e., 1+ hours).

Furthermore, if a delivery is marked as undelivered, DD will issue a contract violation against the driver. It is then up to the driver to submit proof that they completed the delivery, via pictures or video evidence, even though DD tracks our phones the entire time we are delivering and should be able to see if we were there or not. **New drivers are not properly warned about this,** so oftentimes when you have a "hand it to the customer" delivery, drivers don't think to take pictures or videos, and dashcams are expensive, not everyone has one. It is extremely hard to argue your way out of a contract violation if you do not have proof.

If you get 3 or more contract violations, you will be immediately suspended from the platform, and 2 puts you at risk of it. If you complete 100 deliveries without incident since the one that gave you the violation, it *will* just go away... But this is a subtle tactic used to scare drivers into taking more (usually very badly paying) orders, because they fear deactivation.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to get a refund, if you legitimately did not receive your order. But please, try contacting your driver directly before you contact support, and if you must contact support, really consider whether someone losing a job, even if it a side gig, is worth the amount of money you spent. You can often just lie and tell DD the order is completely wrong and they'll refund it without punishing the driver, as that's seen as a merchant error.

Also, I don't think many customers realize this: we CANNOT see delivery instructions before we accept a delivery, and they are difficult to see until after the delivery is picked up (as they are only available on a floating widget badge). If you ask for extra sauces or other things in the delivery instructions, 9 times out of 10 we will not see it until we are already on the road and headed to you. Please don't hate drivers for this; most of the drivers I've seen are more than happy to do whatever you want! But msg us via the app, DO NOT use the delivery instructions. Delivery instructions is for instructions on how to find your house or apartment if the numbers aren't very visible, or telling us to call you instead of come to your door when we arrive, that sort of thing. In fact, please be as descriptive as possible for the delivery instructions on this front- if you're ordering from a business, tell us the business name. If you're ordering from an apt, tell us the apartment complex name. If you're ordering from a house, tell us the color of your house or the cars in the driveway. It's all very helpful!

One last thing before I wrap this up: safety. Delivering is an extremely dangerous job. Pizza delivery, for example, is one of the most dangerous professions, and DD's safety features are even worse than those places. DD has implemented a feature for you to contact 911 via the Dasher app in emergencies, but often, this would still be too late. DD does NOT vet the areas for safety that they release the platform into, and there is no real recourse for violent customers aside from talking to support, which takes time and often won't communicate the issue effectively. Sometimes this works, and customers will rarely get banned from Doordash if they threaten, harass, or injure a driver. But the vast majority of these cases go unreported.

Loose dogs and carjacking are also major problems. Customers failing to notify other people in their households that they ordered delivery has led to me being threatened before. I've had people answer the door in their underwear. I had someone try to invite me into his house while wearing nothing but briefs. I had someone step out of their pickup truck carrying two rifles directly in front of me right before I delivered to their house once. I've had dogs nearly bite me - thankfully none have, I'm luckier than many others, but it's still a significant risk. A lot of people seem to trust their dogs when they really should not.

All of this, for $2.25 in base pay + a few dollars in tips.

I really do love delivering, and I do appreciate the freedom DD gives me in choosing my work schedule right now. However, the compensation is woefully bad, the company scams merchants, customers, and drivers alike, and the working conditions are very unsafe.

Idk how many people here really use DD, or what in particular can even be done about most of these issues, but I hope this enlightened some folks.

[molsons112000]

Walmart does incredible business with the Latino community in Nogales Arizona as well as Tucson Arizona. They do the same in Texas. There should be a Walmart right over the border in Brownsville, Texas. So Walmart can do great business by opening app on the American side of the border and working with people getting secure access beat tailors and locals to enter in the United States only to go shopping.

But the small Mexican grocers like the one I am near are a direct threat to Walmart. So they don't want them to grow. 🤔 So keeping them small is in the best interest of Walmart.

Where is the highest grossing Walmart store in the United States?

Miami is home to many things: pristine waters, sparkling green foliage and now the nation's highest grossing Walmart. This megastore, which recently underwent a bomb threat, is located in Doral on Northwest 87th Avenue and contains Walmart's usual infinite supply of everything at "always low prices.May 6, 2014

https://miami.racked.com › doral-ha...

Doral Has the Highest Grossing Walmart in the Country

But the only way they do this is like a taco. Bell, doesn't want more small Mexican restaurants to open in the United States. Not the quick-serve. They wanna make sure they gain the footprint. They gain the leverage... So maybe full-service Mexican restaurants like El Charro. 🤔 It is into the dine-in business, not the delivery business. So Taco Bell should be making sure. It dominates on Grubhub and other platforms. And this is the reason they would use them to squeeze out the competition. So they need to be on DoorDash GrubHub and Uber. As we said at the Phoenician Hotel. We are a very big hotel with about 500 to 600 rooms. But we treat each client like they're in a boutique hotel. We didn't want more Airbnb's to open up. We didn't want more bed and breakfast to open up... So we wanted to get the employees we wanted to grow... So we wanted to give him this boutique. Feeling there's the bed-in breakfast feel... So these are a direct threat to their existing operations for the Marriott which bought Starwood but also choice brands. They can get into it a little bit but they don't want it to grow... They want to compete fiercely against them. So that's why you have all these travel sites that sell their rooms on it at a discount rate... So they need to be pushing back against these levels. It's independent operations... And I'm for Airbnb trying to expand but it should be a big struggle. This is what taxicab services didn't learn... I tried to prevent the existence of Uber and Lyft. I came up with a strategy at the players club and told them how they could call a cab for the patron and the cab could call them when they arrived and they could tell the patron that the taxi was outside waiting for them... It would build customer loyalty to the players club. It would have built customer loyalty to existing restaurants and grocery stores where yes, a grocery store like Walmart said. Don't worry, we will order you a cab. And if you shop at Walmart and purchase a certain amount of groceries, we will give you a free cab ride within 5 miles of the store. Yes if you purchase over a hundred dollars in groceries will give you a free cab ride... So they gotta figure out how far out they wanna go. But they could offer something where they give free rides on their Walmart. Plan if you're a client who purchases so much business. Offering free taxi cab services for a good client would allow them to call the taxicab for them at the customer service desk Or they can order it through the Walmart app... And if you get so many reward points, you get free taxi service right like CVS does free delivery of certain prescriptions if you sign up for their plan... 😉 So this gets seniors out to Walmart and they don't have to drive.... 🙄 But I went into Uber and left resisting. My father was a cab driver owning a traditional cab and he was very good at it. I understand the value of a medallion... And those medallions brought in a lot of revenue to the city as well...

Where is the highest grossing Walmart store in the United States?

Miami is home to many things: pristine waters, sparkling green foliage and now the nation's highest grossing Walmart. This megastore, which recently underwent a bomb threat, is located in Doral on Northwest 87th Avenue and contains Walmart's usual infinite supply of everything at "always low prices.May 6, 2014

https://miami.racked.com › doral-ha...

Doral Has the Highest Grossing Walmart in the Country

Though, as you see here, medallions were worth $400,000 and going up, and they went from $400,000 down to $30,000. Destroying their worth impoverished to people that own taxicabs. I was trying to prevent this from happening.....

In 2019, the New York Times reported that a taxi medallion in Chicago was worth around $30,000, down from nearly $400,000. In 2021, ABC Chicago reported that the average medallion was selling for around $12,000. 

ABC 7 Chicago

Could Chicago taxi cab services make a comeback?

Oct 30, 2021 — RELATED: Cab crash: Is Chicago's cab industry on the verge of collapse? That attorney also says more cabs are coming back to fulfill transportation needs. The price of the average cab medallion was at around $350,000, but that was before rideshare options. Now, medallions sell for around $12,000. One driver we spoke to said he's seizing on the business opportunity. He paid $11,000 for his and he's ready to get back to work. "I was a cab driver over 10 years and then corona hits and everything stopped," said taxi driver Adam Foudil. "I'm not the only one coming back, a lot of cab drivers are coming back, so there's a huge need.

The New York Times

‘We Were Wiped Out’: New Yorkers Preyed on Chicago Cabbies - The New York Times

Oct 4, 2019

Medallions are licenses that allow someone to own and operate a taxi in Chicago. In 2013, the price of a medallion in Chicago was $360,000, but prices have since fallen by about 80%. The medallion market has crashed due to increased competition from ride-share companies like Uber and Lyft. 

So what happened? Forty percent of the city's cabs went out of business....

Today, a Chicago taxi medallion is worth $30,000, or less, and many owners have given up. Forty percent of the city's cabs are currently not in operation.Oct 4, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com › nyregion

'We Were Wiped Out': New Yorkers Preyed on Chicago Cabbies

According to Reuters, a taxi medallion can generate a real income stream of around $75,000 per year, assuming the income rises at the same rate as inflation. This would represent a 7.5% real yield on a $1 million investment. However, this doesn't account for taxes, insurance, maintenance, and the fact that the vehicles must be replaced every three years. For example, in New York City, cab companies can earn around $80,000 per year if they have their cab leased out every day of the year. However, if that diminishes the returns by $25,000 per year, the vehicle is still earning $55,000 each year. 



Investopedia

How NYC's Yellow Cab Works and Makes Money - Investopedia

The real winner here, of course, is the cab company. If they have their cab leased out every day of the year, they can bring in around $80,000 per year. That's a substantial sum for one vehicle, but that doesn't include taxes, insurance, maintenance, and the fact that the vehicles must be replaced every 3 years. Even so, if that diminishes the returns by $25,000 per year, the vehicle is still earning $55,000 each year.

Reuters

Why taxi medallions cost $1 million - Reuters

Oct 21, 2011 — We're basically talking about a real income stream, here, of about $75,000 per year. (Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the income from a taxi medallion rises at the same rate as inflation.) That's a real yield of 7.5% on a $1 million investment — which isn't half bad at today's interest rates. Put it this way: how much would a bond paying a real yield of $75,000 a year cost? At the most recent auction , opens new tab, the 29-year TIPS cleared at an interest rate of 0.999%. At a 1% real yield, an income stream of $75,000 a year would cost you $7.5 million. Now you don't actually get $75,000 a year if you own a medallion.

Medallion systems limit the number of taxicabs that can service a certain market, which institutes barriers for taxicab ownership. As a result of the artificially restricted supply, medallion holders earn significant economic rents and are also protected from competition. 

In May 2022, the average medallion value in New York City had climbed from $79,106 in May 2021 to $137,330. 

So they have to buy a medallion in San Francisco. As an example, it cost them $250,000. The medallion can only be used by one cab. And if that cab goes out of business they can sell the medallion. You can't sell anything on Uber and Lyft. But with a taxicab, you can sell your business. Is the value of the business is the value of the medallion and this is what I don't understand about cab drivers not wanting to get better because if they get better. Each individual cab is worth in San Francisco $250,000. So yes, each individual cab by itself.And if you're a company and you have many medallions while this protects the value of the company... So if somebody's going to acquire you and you own 10 medallions. In San Francisco, that's worth 2.5 million dollars. And it also controls how many cabs are on the market.... Because they controlled how many new medallions can be issued and the cabbies.They vote and they can make sure the city doesn't flood the market with cheap services.... It's.

Throwing too many

[lochtayboatsong]

Day 697 (10 February 2022)

So I am desperately broke at the moment.  So much so that I have reactivated my Uber Driver and Lyft Driver profiles, and also signed up to drive for GrubHub for good measure.

Here’s the thing.  One of the implicit rules/points of etiquette for being a rideshare driver is that one’s car must be immaculately clean, with absolutely no personal belongings or clutter in the backseat or trunk.

A little less than two months ago, I allowed my parents to put approximately thirty percent of their storage unit in my car’s backseat and trunk, to include two area rugs, various medium-to-large framed pictures, two boxes of Christmas ornaments, a barstool, and a large container of my late grandparents’ china.

This various bric-a-brac has remained quite happily ensconced in my vehicle since then.  But now I need to remove it and bring it into my apartment...which is on the third floor...of a building with no elevator.

FML.

[jonthethinker]

After a long day of truly cursed thoughts, I’ve come to the determination that the Cerberus Assembly can act as a sort of Exandrian analog of our world’s Silicon Valley, and I hate it. I hate hate hate it.

The more I think about it, the more it just sort of melds into my mind as fact. I can’t escape it. This is where I live now.

You’ve got this collection of self-proclaimed super geniuses, unbounded by modern social mores and determined to invent a new sort of ethics, with an intent on shaping history and sagely guiding the world into a better future. This is despite the fact that most of the ideas they have inevitably end up making the world worse, and the only thing “new” that they really bring into the world is a bunch of actually very old ideas coated in fresh circuitry/magic.

But let’s dig a little deeper and start getting specific.

They both have these images of fiercely independent, creative bodies desperate to remain free from government control, and sometimes even as a check on that very government. The heads of the Cerberus Assembly outright say their intent is to act as a check on the Crown, and are known to have many secrets the Crown is, to their knowledge, totally unaware of.

Tech companies, particularly in America, have this outward facing very libertarian outlook on things, saying they don’t wish to interfere in the very important process of democracy and free speech, while simultaneously feeling it is their responsibility to fact check those in power and hold them to account, with their “serious vetting” of political ads and the like on their platforms. They also lobby heavily against any and all regulation of their various products and services, preferring to let the “invisible hand” of the market provide the service of keeping them in check, much as the Cerberus Assembly prefers to handle its own problems internally.

But when you really dig into the details this is all bullshit. The Cerberus Assembly, for all intents and purposes, IS the Empire. They run the secret police, for goodness sake. The two are so interconnected, and the Assembly as an institution is so dependent on the infrastructure and manpower, and of course money (because the fancy clothes, giant towers, and expensive sets of material components don’t pay for themselves) of the Empire to accomplish its goals, it can’t serve as a real check on Imperial forces possibly “overstepping”, and it also has no material interest in doing so; the more power and control the Empire has, the more power and control the Assembly has; the less freedom the citizens have due to authoritarian “safety” measures implemented by the Crown, the safer the Assembly itself becomes to pursue it’s morally dubious work and experimentation.

The same goes with Silicon Valley and the various tech companies that fall under its ethos. They will expound continually on the necessary freedom from government control they must have to truly change the world in the ways they think are best, but the primary source of money for most of these companies are governments. They either primarily contract with governments for most of their actual profits or to use its already established infrastructure, as is the case with Amazon, or depend heavily on publicly funded research for their innovations, which is everyone from Apple to Google to Microsoft and dozens and dozens of smaller companies besides. They then even get to patent these publicly funded innovations and hold a monopolized stranglehold on their use. This is not even to mention the starter capital necessary to form many of these companies in the first place itself was provided by governments, with the rather, shall we say “morally questionable” Kingdom of Saudi Arabia being among the top contributors to such start ups.

Even when either of these groups claim to be self-made, it’s all bullshit. So many of our famous tech overlords that supposedly built themselves from nothing started at the upper reaches of society, with more than enough capital and connections to insure they were never at any real risk of failing in the first place. Most even went to the same elite institutions of learning that provide the vast majority of the political leadership of the United States, institutions they had access to due to their wealth and familial connections, not their brains. Elon Musk’s family owned an emerald mine in Zambia for God’s sake, one his family would have never owned without the British Empire being a thing.

The same can be said for the Assembly. The upper classes of the Dwendalian Empire are lousy with mages and magic users. If they don’t have a place to climb among the nobility, they work for the Assembly, and hope to climb there. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the only poorer mage recruits we know anything real about all were sucked up into the service of the Scourgers, one of the few arms of the Assembly known to regularly interact with societies lower reaches and not so positively at that, and had their familial identities obliterated in the process. Both of these groups are of the upper reaches of society and serve the upper reaches of society, and we should never think anything less.

And this brings us to the ideological framework both of these groups think with. They are both full to the brim with people who are individualists to the extreme. They all believe they are singular actors in the great tapestry of history, who got where they are by hard work and dedication, and anyone who isn’t there just didn’t do enough. The folks living in the tent city outside Zadash? lazy layabouts who simply have not applied their mind to be something greater, or perhaps their veins are just full of bad blood. Poor former factory workers in Detroit whose jobs have been moved to places where labor laws are weaker and wages are lower? If they’d only taken their education more seriously, they could be where I am! Or maybe they just never tried to be an Uber driver or delivering for Grubhub, because that’s how you really pull yourself out of poverty.

Meanwhile, most of the groups consist of people who have never once known real adversity and certainly not the hardship of poverty nor the lack of social and political power that position entails. They are blinded to the reality of most people in the world outside their rather small one, and thus have no understanding of the material hardship that most people experience during their everyday life.

You see this most clearer in the manner in which they try to solve what they see as societies great problems, with no clear thought put into the consequences of these particular solutions. In our world, this is particularly obvious. Uber is painted as an innovative means of transportation on a budget, when in reality it’s just a fleet of untrained, underpaid, non-unionized taxi drivers using their own personal vehicles at their own expense. Elon Musk is seen as this super genius when his solution to LA traffic wasn’t a more robust public transportation system or slowly reconstructing the city to be more pedestrian friendly, but instead to build a massive network of single car elevators under the city to zip cars to key hot spots faster in a manner people less anxious than me would still call risky at best. I mean most of these people think the key to ending poverty is teaching people to code or giving them STEM education, even when in a capitalist economy the only thing a sudden flooding of new coders and STEM educated folks would insure is that the jobs that require those skills will see a sudden massive drop in pay and benefits as the pool of prospective employees becomes over-saturated and individual workers no longer have any bargaining power to protect their once rare jobs. You already see this in animation and video game design, and you’ll certainly see it elsewhere.

For the Assembly, despite being praised as the brightest arcane minds of Wildmount, seem to get most of their ideas either by stealing them from others or digging them up out of the ground. But this is just the nature of empire; it’s always easier for an empire to consume than it is to create. So as little as they think of the Dynasty, they are eager to steal every little bit of knowledge they’ve discovered about Dunamis, and without the faith and moral sense the Luxon-based religion imposes, they will never be forced to put the use of this rare and dangerous magic into perspective. Imagine what harm they can cause with gravity and time magic when they don’t have that religious pressure to consider the value of life and choice. But this makes sense when their main sources of inspiration are the wizards of the Age Of Arcana; you know, the wizards whose hubris nearly destroyed the entire world and spurred an apocalyptic war that sent society into a dark age in which the gods themselves abandoned them? A+ inspiration material if you ask me.

Even the culture of these two groups in regards to how they regulate themselves is so eerily similar. Think of Delilah Briarwood. Member in good standing of the Cerberus Assembly. Also, worshipper of Vecna and talented necromancer. Only expelled from the Assembly after involvement from the Cobalt Soul, even when you know every other member of the Assembly almost certainly had loads of information on this lady.

It just makes me think of all the weird, right-wingers and Nazis who occasionally get expelled from the heights of Silicon Valley whenever some journalist exposes them, and how quickly their colleagues are to condemn them even when so many of them either knew this person was this way well before they were exposed or actively agreed with them and still do. I mean, think of how protected Bill Gates is, because of how much his philanthropist image has served to insulate and protect the gross consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of so few, even when his fortune was built on stolen ideas, military funding and research, and a hardcore software monopoly for well over a decade or two. Also, his philanthropy has done nothing to help African people build their own institutions of power independent of European and American influence, and have help distract us from the damage really caused to the entire continent by earlier colonialism and later capitalist imperialism.

This is to say as bad as our world is, I now definitely don’t want to live in Wildemount. I don’t want to live a world where Mark Zukerberg can cast Disintegrate. Not ideal. I guess I’ll just have to work that much harder to fix this one and not depend on learning Dunamancy to just put us on a different path. Bummer.

[purplesurveys]

1157

survey by hxcsingingsk8r

Phone Scavenger Hunt

First off, what phone do you have? I have an iPhone 8.

And what provider do you use? It’s a local one you wouldn’t know about, called Globe.

How long have you had your current phone? I can’t remember if it would be 3 or 4 years this 2021. Either way, it’s definitely been a while and I’ve been itching to upgrade. It’s too early to make such a big purchase, though.

Do you have any cases for it? Describe them. I have a clear case that I bought last year. Before that, I had a pink Otterbox case that I managed to destroy even though Otterbox is normally known for its durability. I just have a very unique ability to wreck everything I’ve ever owned lol.

How old were you when you got your first cellphone? I was technically 6, but it was meant to be a present for my 7th birthday. We threw a birthday party a month in advance because my dad had to fly back abroad for work before my actual birthday, but we wanted him to be present at the celebration so we decided throwing a party early was the best route.

What about your first smartphone? [If the answer is different] It was an iPhone 5S.

How old are you now? Dunno what this has to do with the theme of the survey but I am now 22.

Okay, move onto the scavenger hunt part

What is your lock screen picture of? It’s of Kim Seon Ho at a restaurant, lmao.

Home screen? It’s one of the shots from a recent promotional photoshoot Hayley did for Good Dye Young.

How many pictures are thre currently on your phone? This question just made me so anxious hahaha. I have way too many photos; and upon checking, it turns out I currently have 6,266. My god do I need to clean up my camera roll this weekend.

How many videos? I have 227. I have no idea it’s gotten to be this many; I barely use my phone to take videos. I’ll go ahead and delete some of them right now, just to give my phone (and its storage) space to breathe.

What is your most recent picture of? It’s a work thing...I guess I’ll explain it so it can make more sense. So one of our clients has got this Lent campaign going on, and to spread word about it we’ve tapped a handful of food bloggers to try out the offers themselves and post about their experience on social media. Now that we’re in the middle of Holy Week they’ve gone ahead and uploaded their own posts, and I’m in charge of taking screenshots so I can show to the client that the execution had been successful.

And the most recent video? It’s a private vlog. Every Sunday, or at least every other Sunday I take a few minutes to sit down and do a weekly video thing where I talk about my ~mental~ and ~emotional~ status, and it’s basically a way to be in touch with myself and keep track of my progress. Who knows, maybe I’ll actually get to uploading them one day.

Do you have any albums? If so, of what? Yeah. I have one for Cooper, one for Kimi, and a bunch of tiny albums I’ve made where I compiled 4–5 photos of friends to post on their birthdays.

What pictures have you favorited? I have a lot of favorited photos. There’s no required category for me to label them as such.

Do you have any shared albums with friends or family or work? No. I’m not sure if I can do that, or how to do it if it is allowed.

Do you have any alarms set? For what time and for what occasions? I have a bunch of alarms but only because they’re archived into the Clock app and I just haven’t gotten around to deleting them. When I was still new at my work, I used to have alarms set for certain work tasks I have to take note of every week – but now that I’ve gotten into the groove of things, I don’t need the alarms to be reminded about them anymore.

Check your weather app, what is the weather and temperature where you live? It says ‘Mostly Clear’ and shows a temperature of 26ºC.

Do you have the YouTube app? Do you have your own channel? I do have the app and my own account, but I never use it to post videos. It’s nice to have my own channel so that my homepage can be tailored to my interests.

Do you have an email app? Which one do you use? I just have the default Email app that comes with iOS, but I never use it because it’s so wonky. It doesn’t refresh new emails and it takes forever when it does, and it doesn’t always show the full thread of email conversations. If I absolutely need to check my email for something I usually have to pull out my laptop.

Does it say that there is an update available on your phone or any apps? Yes, it reminds me everyday hahaha. I don’t update unless Apple has been planning a big revamp with new features, though; and if the updates are just to address bugs, I disregard the reminders.

Go into your contacts, how many contacts do you have total? It says I have 178.

Name all of your contacts under the letter M: Feels a tad bit invasive, so I’ll just name five people I have under M: Lui, Kim, Patrice, Danika, and Andi.

Name all of your contacts under the letter U: I don’t have anyone under U.

Do you have any contacts that are businesses rather than people? Which ones? No, I don’t really use text to contact businesses. If I wanted to inquire or order from one, I usually head to their social media page.

Go into your notes, how many notes do you have saved? This is another one I have a hoarding problem with lol. My phone says I currently have 561 notes, though I’m fairly certain the biggest chunk of it comes from minutes I’ve taken down from work meetings. It was a whole lot less when I was still in school.

What kinds of things do you save in your notes? Like I said, I use Notes for taking down minutes from meetings. There are also a few surveys on there, from times I didn’t have internet and couldn’t post them on here.

Do you have any voice memos saved? What of? Yep. Some of them were recordings I had to do for journalism classes I was assigned to do voiceovers; some are interviews, also from my journ class; and the rest are of me rambling.

Do you ever use the calculator app? Pretty frequently for work.

Do you ever use the Maps app? Not really. If I needed directions, I would check out Waze for that.

Do you have any health/fitness apps? Which ones? I still have the Nike Training app from the very brief time I wanted to start working out earlier this year.

Do you have the Instacart app? The what now? I’ve never even heard of that.

What about a delivery service like Postmates, Uber Eats, Grubhub, Doordash? I have the McDelivery app for McDonald’s, but I also have other general delivery apps like Grab, Lalamove, and Transportify.

Do you have something like Venmo, Cashapp, or Paypal? I have the Paypal app but I never use it. I also have a couple of e-wallet apps just in case I’d have to use them as a payment method, since some businesses  I purchase from prefer certain ones. Ultimately, though, I use Grab’s mobile wallet the most often.

Do you use Bitmoji? I think I did before? I never used it all that regularly though. Didn’t see the point.

What other keyboards do you use besides English? Any? Filipino, Korean, and Emoji.

Which social media network apps do you have? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, TikTok, and Snapchat. So I guess I have all the main ones?

If you have Instagram, what is your handle and how many followers? I have a very private one I only use for work. I didn’t want it to have any followers but at present there’s Angela (because she asked to follow it this week) and Bea (idk why).

What do you typically post on the various social media platforms? The only ones I regularly post on are Twitter and Facebook, and on either I share life updates (if there are any) and memes; though on Facebook I have to watch out what kind of memes I share and make sure they aren’t too offensive because I’m friends with relatives, workmates, and media on there lmao. But on Twitter, I basically have no filter.

Do you make TikTok videos? I don’t make any myself, but I do enjoy going through the app.

Do you only add people you know on Facebook? Yes, for the most part. I’ve taken to adding people as long as they’re from UP or my high school even though I’ve never met them as well, but if I sense that they only added me to try and sell me insurance OR try to get me into MLM, then it’s an instant unfriend for me.

Do you have an app that tracks Instagram followers? No, because I don’t need to track my Instagram followers. I’m off the radar as off the radar gets.

Do you have a Snapchat? Yeah, it’s still on my phone just because but I literally never touch it anymore.

Do you ever take selfies with filters? What app's filters do you use? Eh, just before. I don’t really take selfies anymore, period.

Do you use any apps like Depop or Poshmark or Etsy? No. Out of these three I’ve only ever heard of Etsy, too.

What messengers do you use to talk to people? Any besides just texting? I have Messenger to stay in touch with family and friends; Whatsapp and Viber for work; and Telegram just in case my friends want to play games.

Do you have any photo editing apps? Which ones? I have this app called Foodie that has some pretty filters. Otherwise, since I’m not on Instagram anyway I’m never on the lookout for photo editing apps; no one ever filters their photos on Facebook and Twitter lol.

Do you have any games? Which ones? I do have a ton of games on my phone. I never play any of them, but I keep them just in case I get bored enough to start revisiting them. I have word games, drinking games, games similar to Heads Up! where one person will have to guess the word on the screen while the phone is on their forehead, and gimmicky games like 1010! and Candy Crush haha.

Do you have any rideshare apps like Lyft or Uber? I have Grab, which is a rideshare, parcel delivery, food delivery, and online grocery app all in one.

Now go to the actual phone app, whose phone numbers are saved as favorites? I don’t tag any of my contacts as favorites.

Who was your most recent outgoing call to? I can’t recognize the number, so it was probably a Transportify driver that I called to give him directions to my house.

Who was your most recent incoming call from? I also can’t recognize the number, but this time he was most likely a Grab driver.

Who was your most recent missed call from? Again, can’t recognize the number HAHAA

Why did you miss that call? On purpose? Were you sleeping? Busy? My phone is on silent 24/7, so I must have missed it while I was working.

Who is your most recent voicemail from and what's it regarding? We don’t have voicemail in the Philippines.

What was the last thing you Googled or searched on your phone? Candle tunneling and how to fix it.

What music app do you use? Apple Music? Spotify? Something else? I use Spotify, but I also availed of a 3-month trial on Apple Music earlier this year just because. I think it’s supposed to end soon but I have no plans to shift.

What playlists have you made on there? I have playlists called, “robyn discovers kpop,” “winding down,” “angst,” “not my loss,” and my personal favorite, “paramore but fuck you.”

Lastly, what is the most recent song/album you've added to your collection? What Type of X - Jessi.

[ahnsael]

So I’ve mentioned that I’m awaiting test results for COVID-19. But I don’t think I’ve actually told you about the test itself.

Here’s how it worked. Your experience may vary.

My experience: make an appointment for the test. This took several tries. For days, I couldn’t get one unless I was willing to drive 8 hours. Then, when I found one closer, I accidentally canceled it (I was just hoping to change the time, but in doing so my original time was given to someone else and I went through the whole sign-up process again to see that there were no available times) -- it took a couple more days to actually get an appointment through “Minute Clinic.”

The day of my new appointment, I drove 40 miles to get to a CVS store where, according to the email, I was to put on my face mask and leave my window rolled up until told otherwise.

I arrived about 10 minutes early, so I found a parking spot and put on a mask.

The drive-up window was apparently open, but I didn’t want to be early and be turned away and told to come back. There was a line at the time, and I didn’t want to hold anyone up.

At 9:58am, I started my car again and got into the drive-through window line (one car was ahead of me at the time). I got to the window at exactly 10:00am, my appointment time, so I timed it good.

I didn’t roll down my window at first -- I just held up my confirmation email that I had printed out to show them why I was there. Then they had me roll down my window so they could speak to me via intercom.

The pharmacist at the window needed to see my ID (I was also told in the confirmation email to have my insurance card handy but they didn’t request to see it). The just looked at the ID in my hand (they didn’t take it from me). They asked what my appointment time was, and when I said 10am, and they were satisfied after seeing my ID and verifying my appointment on their computer.

Then they held up examples of the things they were going to give me and explained how the test would work. I was to take a swab and stick it into one nostril (straight back, not “up” towards my brain -- so those who have described the test as “stabbing their brain” had a different experience than I did). I was to stick it back about an inch, until I met resistance, and move it around for 15 seconds (and while it’s not exactly “stabbing my brain,” it was a very odd sensation). Then I was to take it out, and then use the same swab to do it again in the other nostril for 15 seconds (My odd thought was that if my left nostril had it, I have now given it to my right nostril, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how this virus works).

After that, I was to break the swab in half (it was scored to make this easy), and then put the swab into a vial that had a small amount of clear liquid in it (I don’t know whether it was water, or saline, or something else), and then seal the lid. Then I was to take all that and put it back in the ziplock bag that they came in, seal it (making sure to get rid of any excess air), fold and rubber-band it so it would take up as little space as possible, and place it in a collection box outside the window, then use a sanitizing wipe that was provided in a separate bag to wipe down anything I touched during the test (I also had to roll up my window during the test, because showing cotton up one’s nose often makes people sneeze, although I did not sneeze personally). The pharmacist watched as I did it so that if I had any questions, I could put my mask back on (obviously I had to remove the mask to stick a swab up my nose), roll down the window, and ask -- but it was explained well so I was okay on that front. I did show her my sealed bag after I was done to ensure it was done to their satisfaction, and they approved of the size and shape of how I had done it.

So yeah...between the check-in, the instructions, and the test, it took about ten minutes.

I should have my results by Saturday, according to the pharmacist.

I thought to bring hand sanitizer in case I would be handing anything back to the pharmacist (this was not the case -- once I was done I put the bag with the sample inside of it into the drop box and sanitized the part of the box I touched with the wipe they gave me for that purpose), and the rest of the leftovers like the bottom half of the swab came home with me to be disposed of by me).

But I didn’t think to bring any facial tissues -- and on that 45-minute drive home, my nose was RUNNY after having dug a swab in each nostril. I just let it run, though, since I knew I wasn’t stopping anywhere on the way back from a COVID-19 test (what am I gonna do, get tested for a pandemic and then hit a drive-thru when I could be putting someone else in danger? Contactless delivery has been my thing since then -- which is expensive, especially since I’ve been hitting that 30% tip button on GrubHub because I want the drivers to know I appreciate them, but I can’t exactly hit up Walmart right now; the driver leaves the food on my porch, I wait until they leave, and then I pick it up).

I showered before I went to the test, and I showered when I got home (if only to get the snot off my upper lip -- I know, TMI, but if any of you who haven’t been tested yet eventually need to be tested, it could be important TMI to tell you to expect that).

So yeah...at least for me, that’s how my test process worked. But I know there are different versions of the test, so your experience may vary (NONE of these tests are FDA-approved as they haven’t been fully studied, but are being allowed by the FDA under the state of emergency).

I kind of hope I’ve had the virus, because that would mean I’m likely to be over it before my family comes home (I already feel MUCH better than I did the past two weeks, but I can’t go back until I have a negative test result). Also, if I have NOT had it, that means it’s been something else that brought me down, and I’d rather have the explanation than to say “then what WAS that illness that made me miss so much work?” Either way, there’s likely an urgent care visit in my future. Our policy (unless they’re willing to throw it out under the circumstances) is that anyone missing more than two days needs a doctor’s note saying that we’re healthy enough to work. And who knows HOW much time that will take, or how much it will cost. But I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

But if I had it and was already over it, the test likely won’t pick that up (it’s a virus test, not an antibody test which would tell me if I’ve already had it and developed an internal defense to getting it again).

So I’ll wait and see what the results bring.

[pbandjesse]

Im not having a very good time today. Which feels extra bad because yesterday was so nice. I am feeling very weird about everything. Scared about going back to work. Scared about never going back to work. About how my plans may all have to change for the summer. How I was supposed to be with my family this weekend but I am not. I was just so damn tired. It wasnt good. I didnt do much. My low fever from yesterday is gone though, and my cough isnt as frequent. Still gross and hurts but its not as often. So thats postive.

 Im sitting here with James while he played a video game. We tried to play a couple games together today but after a little I would just get to stressed. I just dont find that fun. I just like collecting games. I want to play things with him though and he is trying hard to find things he thinks I would like. And so many are like a penny right now. So I appreciate the effort. Im just tired. 

I slept better last night. But I was woken up by someone playing the radio incredibly loudly out in the street while they trash picked. And like the music was whatever, made me laugh. But then the very loud radio announcements and commercials made me want to scream. That was not a fun way to wake up. 

James tried to make up donuts but they came out all flat and my sense of taste is still very messed up so I didnt enjoy them as much as I hoped. They smelled nice though. And I really love him for trying. 

I got a shower and washed my hair. I felt very good today. I weighed myself and Im down to 159. Thats a 3lb pandemic loss. My rings fit better and this dress wasnt so tight in the boobs. Just gotta keep up the eating habits. Which is both easier and harder when you are just at home. 

Im sort of past the eat all the snacks phase of it. I am mostly just bored. I dont even want to eat because nothing tastes right. 

But that zapped my energy. I enjoyed playing my animal crossing. And I redesigned all of my cabin and camp. But I couldnt get myself to do much else. 

James went for a ride and I was able to muster up some energy to paint on my big painting for a while. That was nice. I didnt do any sewing which Im slightly disappointed in. But thats okay. I could only work for so long before I went and laid down. 

It also really didnt help that it was much colder today then yesterday. I just couldnt seem to get warm. Which made me pretty miserable. I closed all the windows and put on socks and that helped but not as much as I wanted. I did some cleaning. Changed out pillow cases. Tried to make nice. 

I had some pasta salad. Then James was home when I was listening to my podcast. We played some of the games together. But I was hungry and all I wanted was burger king. So we ordered on grubhub. Support those drivers in this weird time. 

The app had a funny mistake in it though. Medium fries were the normal price. Like $2.97 or something. But the large fries were alsmot $10?? How large are these fries?? So we got mediums and waited. 

Didnt take long at all. And it was good to eat something like that honestly. Even with my messed up tastes. It made me feel a little more connected to the outside world maybe? Thats silly but its now been a week since my job interview and any real time I have spent outside of this apartment. I am afraid that Im going to become agoraphobic or something after thing. I miss my family mostly. And I feel very tired. 

After we ate, James asked what he could do to clean because we had done all the normal things. So I gave him so tasks while I laid down. I didnt sleep. I just watched videos and played animal crossing. James came and laid with me for a while and that made me feel calm enough to sleep for a while. 

When I got up James tried to ask when I wanted for dinner but everything savory made me feel kind of sick to think about. So we ended up having crepes with apples. I missed the sunlight but I did get some of a drawing in before it was to dark to see details. Ill finish that tomorrow probably. 

We played a couple levels of this game until I felt to stressed by it. And now I really just want to wash my face and lay back down. I just feel so tired deep in my soul. 

Tomorrow I hope I feel better. I will wear something warmer. I want to feel better. I hope you are all are doing alright. Stay safe. Pray for this all to be over soon. 

[seifukai-tokyo]

10 biggest news stories

As an annual event, I would like to look back at the 10 biggest news stories. The main event, after all, is the immigration to the United States. 

1.　May - entered the US I took a JAL flight from Itami to Haneda to O'Hare. When saying goodbye to my family at Itami, Tayu gave me a family photo in a frame made of sea glass that we had picked up along the Tarumi beach, and we got separated for a while. I shed tears in the lobby of the airport alone. On the day I arrived in the US, Mr. T, my predecessor, brought me a sandwich and water. What a warm guy!  Also, I lived in a serviced apartment in Arlington Heights for a few months after I entered the US. It had a kitchen, furniture and dishes. So I used to make vongole pasta because I could get cheap and tasty clams that resemble HAMAGURI in  a Japanese supermarket called Mitsuwa. there, so it is easy to get rice and miso. 2.　June - Flat tire, severe vaccine side effect, pulled muscle.I had a hard time in my early days in the US as below.

I tried to get a Starbucks coffee before work, but my tire went flat on the highway.

I was invited to play golf with a sore back. This caused a pulled muscle, which further aggravated my back pain. I couldn't sleep because of the intense pain.

The side effects of both vaccinations were so severe that I almost died.

There was day when I ordered a pizza from GrubHub and it never arrived. What the hell?

3. June: Moved to Schaumburg. It was hard to find a good house because of the rising demand due to the convergence of COVID and the rise of remote work, which caused the rental market to skyrocket. In the end, I decided to move into the house where my predecessor used to live. I considered a big house, which is typical house in the US, but it has its own disadvantages, so I moved into a townhouse of a reasonable size. This place is convenient, safe, and is now my favorite place to live. And Aikido training begins at Great Lakes Aikido. The first day was Kumitachi on the lawn of Vernon Hills. I could feel Sensei's scent in Michael Sensei's eyes.

4. July: Reunited with Arin and Tayu. The two I left behind in Japan had to enter the US earlier than planned. Tayu has been attending a local school, and lately when I talk with him he says, "Ah Ha?". I am amazed at how fast children learn languages. Incidentally, I can spend more time with my family since I came here. And we can see fireflies in the summer. They are called fireflies and emit a yellow light. What can I say, summer in Illinois is very elegant and wonderful.

5. August - Excursion to Lake Geneva We went on a day trip to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. We played making mountains with Tayu on the beach. The restaurants there were good, but In the U.S., there is a custom of tipping, so the cost of living is quite high compared to Japan..

6.　September-October: Managing to build my life foundation I was overwhelmed by the following tasks, and tended to take time off from my Aikido practice. 

Buy furniture and a second car for Arin.

Get a social security number and a state drivers license.

Enrolling in school, and taking him to various checkups for that.

7.　November - Short trip to Galena,  We traveled to Galena, a small town on the border of Illinois and Iowa. We stayed in an Irish cottage and enjoyed beer and steak. Arin told me that the potatoes for breakfast were especially good. 

8.　December -  Dan Promotion Examination I watched the dan promotion examinations of Haru-san, Hassi and Iida-san via ZOOM. I saw how well prepared they were, and how clear their techniques were. The promotion examination is not only about the examination, but also about the preparation, the support of the people around us, the self-reflection afterwards and the acceptance of the certificate. I hope that we can share the experience at the Gaifukan..

9.　December - Meeting with Adam sensei Initially, I visited a dojo affiliated with the headquarters called Great Lakes Aikido, but it was a little far away and there were no kids classes. When I was looking for a place, a person who had trained for a long time at Nara Aikikai, Honbu Dojo, and Ichiku-kai recently moved into the neighborhood, so I have been training there since December. He also suggested that we do Harai somehow, and we are looking for a place. It is a miracle that I can meet someone in the U.S. who knows about Tada Sensei's Aikido and Ichiku-kai  so I am very excited. He also told me that he came to Japan when he was in college and was researching companies for Tooth-Tooth where I used to work as a temporary staff. We hit it off. It must be a very fateful encounter.

10.　Other - got a lot of stuff.  Come to think of it, those who live here give me a lot of things here. For example, something like this. Oh my gosh.

J... an Amazon card as a thank you for my work W...  A set of frozen foods of Trader Joe's as a SASHIIRE T...  wine and cheese in Christmas holiday  C...   a set of beers 

[easyfoodnetwork]

How a Brand New Restaurant Is Surviving Lockdown

The lineup of hospital deliveries at Saigon Social | via Saigon Social/@andrewyang

This week on Eater’s Digest chef Helen Nguyen discusses pivoting to hospital delivery

Chef Helen Nguyen’s first restaurant, Saigon Social, was on track to open in the middle of March right when reduced capacity guidelines and shelter in place orders swept the nation. Since then, her New York restaurant operation has become part delivery-only business, part charity hub, and she has no idea how long she can keep it going.

Nguyen joined Eater’s Digest this week to talk about what it’s like running her operation during the pandemic.

Listen and subscribe to Eater’s Digest on Apple Podcasts and read the full transcript of the interview below.

Daniel Geneen: All right. So Chef Helen Nguyen, welcome to The Digest. Thanks for joining us.

Helen Nguyen: Thanks for having me.

DG: Could you tell us a little bit about opening a restaurant in the last few months?

HN: Well, it’s an adventure, to say the least. We waited about 11 months just to get our gas services turned on. It was this whole ordeal with Con Edison and a lot of frustrations. The day that we got our gas turned on was pretty exciting. I mean, to be able to stare at the appliances and see flames come out and actually cook from them and not induction burners was a huge victory for me. And so, we quickly started training and then retraining and hiring and then rehiring, and we’re very excited for a March 13th opening and then the whole mandate of the 50% occupancy kicked in.

DG: Yeah, and this is your first restaurant?

HN: It’s my first restaurant. I don’t know what I’m doing. And then I thought I knew what I was doing and then I was like, “Okay, now what do I do?” Just literally three days before I saw full opening. I felt completely confident with both the front and the back of the house team and I was like, “Okay, this is it. We’re ready to go. We’re going to start.” And then I had to go back and tell them that, “I’m really sorry but I don’t think I’ll have a job to offer you after this weekend.” So I sat down with everyone and we had a deep cleaning session. I told everyone to cook whatever proteins we had in the walk-in, which was a lot, because we were prepared to have a pretty strong and pretty busy couple of days of friends and family and just having people in the neighborhood in.

And then as people were working, I called each employee in and had a conversation with them one-on-one. We went over all of their hours. I gave them a last paycheck and gave them some extra cash and basically told them that, “You know what? I don’t know if we’re going to be open next week. This might be the last day. And I know that even though we haven’t even started, I just don’t have a good feeling about this and I’m really sorry.” And if they had other job opportunities elsewhere then please, don’t let this delay be a factor in moving forward. Because at the end of the day people have financial responsibilities and obligations.

So it was a very hard conversation to have. And they left and they packed all the food with them. And I stayed back and I stared at the wall for the remainder of the day. And I think I probably bunkered up in the restaurant for three days and was just cooking up a storm with whatever I had left. My fiance, who was also my partner, was like, “Who are you cooking for?” I’m like, “I don’t know.” This is just my way of just mourning or just coping. The only thing that really soothes me is just being able to be in the kitchen. So I think I just needed that time just to process and reassess.

And as I was in the kitchen alone, I see a lot of neighbors come by and they’d peek in and one of our gates was open because I left it open just so that we can still be able to receive mail and get knocks on the window. I’d open it and my neighbor is like, “Oh, hey, are you open?” I said, “No, but I did make a pot of soup today, so if you want some I’d be more than happy to share it with you.” So then two to three bowls a day turned to a dozen, two dozen, and I figured, you know what? Maybe I’m going to try this takeout thing, since there’s a little interest in it. If it just means me feeding a dozen of my neighbors upstairs, I’m going to do it just because what else am I going to do? While we try to figure out what’s going on and how the government’s going to be handling things. And-

Amanda Kludt: So have you just been doing takeout ever since?

HN: I’ve been doing takeout ever since. The first week I said, the first five days it was just me. I was the one answering the phone. I updated our phone number, which we never did before, and the phone was ringing. I was like, “This is really strange.” Having to answer the phone and then also having to cook and then also having to take orders. And so it was a one-man band for the first four or five days. And we’ve been really lucky with the support of the community, mainly just our neighbors.

And so, I decided, okay, well maybe I’ll diversify the menu a little bit and not just offer a chicken pho or just grilled protein over rice and maybe offer two to three things or four things and with that I would be able to bring on maybe one of my prep cooks and be able to provide hours. At that point we weren’t making any money and we still aren’t making any money, but if I’m able to stay afloat and just be able to pay for food costs and be able to take care of just one employee, that really was what kept me going and pushing forward. And for that first week that we were open, it was mainly neighborhood people that are within walking distance that lived upstairs, and I had so many requests for deliveries, but we just couldn’t handle it. I think about the insurance and then having to hire a driver and it all just didn’t make sense. I just couldn’t afford it.

HN: So then I reached out to... I started actually researching. I had a few people reach out from Grubhub and from Seamless, and then I did some research on my own and decided to sign up with Caviar because they had a promotional discount for the first 30 days.

DG: You went with Caviar because they offered you a free month?

HN: Yes, Caviar and DoorDash. I mean, from what I understand, DoorDash acquired Caviar a couple months ago.

DG: Yeah.

HN: Although they’re operating under the same umbrella, they’re very different in terms of the services that they provide, the support that they provide. And both are offering a promotional 30 day period, which is ending actually next week. So then I have to make a decision as to whether or not I’m going to continue, because with the menu that... I mean, our menu changes quite often, because I’m just using whatever resources I have. And even with our purveyors, there’s some days they’ll have produce and some days they won’t be able to have the things that we request just because their supply line isn’t working or has some kind of delay. So with that, that dictates our menu and I created the menu with the community in mind. So we’re already offering very discounted prices. And so, you think about the high commission that these delivery companies are charging, there’s just no way that I would be able to continue because I’d be operating at a negative.

AK: What are the commissions compared to one another? Like Caviar versus?

HN: 30% is a standard. I know that a couple days ago there was some announcements that were made that they were offering a 50% discount through the end of, I believe May, but still you’re looking at 15%. And with where I’m at right now, our margins are pretty much, there are no margins. It’s like I’m working just to provide hours and just... It’s really at a break-even point for me. I mean, I haven’t even looked at our latest utility bill. So, I mean I don’t know what that is and I’ve been able to factor and control certain food costs, but in terms of utility, I haven’t had an opportunity to sit down and update to see what that cost is and if it’s even responsible for me to continue operating after everything is said and done.

So I don’t know. I’ve really just been taking everything on a day-to-day basis, not knowing what... If we were to completely cut off Caviar and DoorDash because of the commission rates, how many people are actually going to drive or walk or be able to come and pick up their food? Because that essentially will be the deciding factor of whether or not we would be able to continue.

DG: What are some of the aspects of delivery that have been challenging? What’s it like picking up even takeout containers and stuff? It’s crazy?

HN: It’s crazy. I mean, I started doing Restaurant Depot runs just out of boredom and it just was a sense of comfort for me. So every morning around seven o’clock I pick up a rental car for the week and I would drive down and just wander between the aisles and sometimes I would purchase things, sometimes I wouldn’t purchase things, but just being there just felt like it was a routine. And I mean, the first two weeks was relatively assessable. I mean, all the containers that I usually use were available. But in the last four to five days, my Restaurant Depot ones have been very frustrating because now a lot of the shelves are starting to be empty. And as I’m talking to a lot of the employees there, they used to be able to tell me, “Oh, okay, on Tuesdays we get this, on Thursdays we get that.” Now they’re like, “We don’t know when we’re going to get this or if we’re ever going to get it back.” Just because of the way that things are right now.

So then, this morning I went and I hoarded as much as I could into the truck that I have. And I plan on doing another run later on this afternoon, just with that vision of the empty shelves in mind, thinking that, “Okay, if I’m going to continue this I need to be able to provide containers that can safely transport the items that I’m providing.”

AK: How long do you think you’ll be able to keep running the restaurant like this?

HN: For as long as I can continue feeding people. We’ve been very fortunate to be able to partner alongside with some organizations that have been able to provide some stipends and funding to be able to, per plate, just to help with some of our costs. But again, if I’m not able to purchase these containers, these to-go containers, I won’t be able to provide the delivery or takeout services to the community or the hospitals or anybody for that matter.

DG: So what’s going on with the hospitals? How did that all get started?

HN: So I try to respond to as many messages I can. And I get a lot of people that go, “Hey, I’m a nurse. I’m a doctor. I’m a pharmacist. I’m this.” All these healthcare professionals are sending messages into my personal as well as our business account asking for assistance. And some of them are just really finding a person to vent to and they’re like, “Hey, I worked X amount of hours. This is what’s going on in our unit. The morale is is going down. We could really use a warm comforting meal.”

And so I started doing very small-scale deliveries, just based on the first few people that had messaged me and based on our capabilities. Because, like I said, that first week it was just basically me cooking, cleaning, packing, answering the phone calls, doing the deliveries. And as we started to bring back staff and have the support, I then had a message one day from Frontline and he’s like, “Hey, I’ve been a fan of the restaurant and I’m part of this nonprofit organization. Do you have a few minutes to talk?” They’re receiving donations from private entities. And what they are essentially doing is providing restaurants with resources, monetary resources, to bring back their staff. And then in turn, the restaurant can help provide more meals to these hospitals and these healthcare workers.

And so, we started off very small with about 50 meals a day, and then were approached by another nonprofit and then also referred to by another nonprofit. And now going on our second week, it’s Tuesday today, yesterday we sent out 245 meals. This week we’re slated for about 1500 meals between the two nonprofit organizations as well as some of my personal funding and some of the donations that my partners and friends back home sent. And so, I don’t know, it’s still very new. I’m still trying to figure out the logistics and how I’ll be able to accommodate, because obviously you don’t want to say no to anyone, but at the same time it’s been very difficult for me to get out of bed every morning at the time I usually do when I... Like last night I returned at 1:00 AM from a midnight delivery. And this morning I woke up at 6:00 and I just don’t want to burn out. I want to be able to continue serving but also be very conscious and be able to set aside time to take care of myself. But-

AK: Yeah, it’s an impossible situation that people are being put into. You go into this thinking you’re going to open a restaurant and instead you end up cooking for frontline workers and working by yourself and it’s insane.

HN: It’s been hard and I feel like I’m almost keeping myself busy and distracting myself from...

AK: It’s so impossible.

HN: I feel like if I just have a moment alone just to think and absorb about things, I have little breakdowns like this where I just sit and I think and I cry and it’s not that it’s a bad thing, it’s okay to be able to process and feel these emotions, but I don’t want to perpetuate it. I’m a firm believer of just manifesting certain energy and just being more in control of your mood and your perspective.

DG: It must be really hard because I feel like there’s so many people trying so many different kind of organizational structures and everyone’s got some idea of, we’re going to feed hospital workers. I feel like someone like you that’s says yes to a lot of those things, you must be getting pulled in infinite directions.

HN: And the numbers keep on going. It’s just every day I log onto Instagram on our social media site, it’s like, Hey, I’m this and, Hey I’m that. Before it used to be one a week, one a day, now it’s, on average, I get five to six different requests and I feel so bad because a good percentage of them are from small hospitals in Brooklyn or hospitals up in the Bronx and the Harlem where people, they don’t get the kind of coverage and support that a lot of the main hospitals in the city do. And those are the ones that you want to help the most because they don’t have the resources.

I’m willing to do that, but at the same time it’s like, “Oh wait, but I also have dinner service and the community that I’ve committed to, to takeout and deliveries.” And it’s important to maintain continuity and not just be like, “Oh, today I’m open, tomorrow I’m not. Oh, today I might be closed for half of the day, but I’ll be back in a couple hours.” It’s hard. It’s hard. But it’s also hard saying no to people, because there’s a lot of people that are struggling right now and truly need the assistance a lot more than I do.

DG: If you commit to bringing 100 meals or something to a hospital that’s not as well covered, can you then report that back to one of the organizations that you’re working with and then have those meals covered financially?

HN: Yes. So I actually reached out to my contact over at Frontline, was like, “Hey, I’ve been getting an overwhelming response and just people reaching out through email and through Instagram.” And even though they’re very well funded at this point, I feel like their resources are also very limited. There’s just so much that they can do because a lot of the contacts that I communicate with are donating their time to this nonprofit, and they all have full-time jobs. So, I mean, they may be like, “Okay, we will take on these three hospitals.” But it won’t be until maybe two weeks down the line. Whereas it’s like, well, if I have a slow lunch period on Thursday, I want to go to that hospital on Thursday and not have to wait for things to be answered into the system and be looped in through a process, right?

DG: How much can they actually provide per meal?

HN: It’s been ranging. Some organizations offer $10 a meal. Some organizations offer up to $17 a meal. A lot of the hospitals, from my understanding, their cafeterias have completely shut down. And prior to the shutdown, they’re getting just sandwiches and just very, very simple soups and different breads. And when I think about it, it’s just, these are the people that are helping our city a better, they’re risking their life every day coming into work, working long hours, just as long as we are in the kitchen. And they also, more than anyone, deserve a nice meal. To be able to sit down and just enjoy something that was made with a lot more love and care, more so than just a salad that you get from the cafeteria. But although the budget is there and the help is there, I just feel as though that it’s just... When you account for the labor costs and all the other costs that we have to deal with at the end of the day, it’s a lot more substantial than what we’re getting in. But we’re doing our best to try to make everything work.

AK: Aside from the hospital work and the charity and then I guess the delivery business, is there any other support your business can get? Are you able to apply for any of the stimulus relief funds or are you not eligible because you don’t have a payroll right now? How does that work with a new business?

HN: It’s been really exciting to see all these relief funds that are available. But unfortunately we aren’t eligible, just because, I believe there’s two funds where if you were in business prior to, I think it was mid-February. But with us we were in such a weird position with gas and with opening and just not knowing what the official date was going to be, we didn’t have anything established until much later on in March. And for that reason, we just didn’t make the cut for a lot of the grants and a lot of the help that is available, just because we weren’t open and operating as a fully functional restaurant yet.

AK: That sucks.

DG: When we’re through and back when we’re in boom times, are you going to permit yourself to have a real opening day, an opening night?

HN: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, everyone that comes by to pick up food, they peek through the window and they’re like, “Oh, we can’t wait to be able to sit down.” And I’m like, “I can’t wait to personally serve people.” I mean, we built the restaurant with an open kitchen in mind so that we can provide that experience, not only just for the staff, but also for the consumers. Or they can be able to like, “Oh, my food’s being made. I can watch my meat being grilled or my soup being scooped out.” And just being able to have people in enjoying the atmosphere, I for sure am going to have an official grand opening date where we can officially celebrate as a full service restaurant and not just a takeout window where have to stay six to ten feet apart and have to really focus to be able to hear what people are mumbling through the masks. Yeah, we very much look forward to that day.

AK: Thank you so much for sharing your story with us and for all the hard work you’re putting in. It’s truly incredible.

HN: Thank you so much for having me.

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The lineup of hospital deliveries at Saigon Social | via Saigon Social/@andrewyang

This week on Eater’s Digest chef Helen Nguyen discusses pivoting to hospital delivery

Chef Helen Nguyen’s first restaurant, Saigon Social, was on track to open in the middle of March right when reduced capacity guidelines and shelter in place orders swept the nation. Since then, her New York restaurant operation has become part delivery-only business, part charity hub, and she has no idea how long she can keep it going.

Nguyen joined Eater’s Digest this week to talk about what it’s like running her operation during the pandemic.

Listen and subscribe to Eater’s Digest on Apple Podcasts and read the full transcript of the interview below.

Daniel Geneen: All right. So Chef Helen Nguyen, welcome to The Digest. Thanks for joining us.

Helen Nguyen: Thanks for having me.

DG: Could you tell us a little bit about opening a restaurant in the last few months?

HN: Well, it’s an adventure, to say the least. We waited about 11 months just to get our gas services turned on. It was this whole ordeal with Con Edison and a lot of frustrations. The day that we got our gas turned on was pretty exciting. I mean, to be able to stare at the appliances and see flames come out and actually cook from them and not induction burners was a huge victory for me. And so, we quickly started training and then retraining and hiring and then rehiring, and we’re very excited for a March 13th opening and then the whole mandate of the 50% occupancy kicked in.

DG: Yeah, and this is your first restaurant?

HN: It’s my first restaurant. I don’t know what I’m doing. And then I thought I knew what I was doing and then I was like, “Okay, now what do I do?” Just literally three days before I saw full opening. I felt completely confident with both the front and the back of the house team and I was like, “Okay, this is it. We’re ready to go. We’re going to start.” And then I had to go back and tell them that, “I’m really sorry but I don’t think I’ll have a job to offer you after this weekend.” So I sat down with everyone and we had a deep cleaning session. I told everyone to cook whatever proteins we had in the walk-in, which was a lot, because we were prepared to have a pretty strong and pretty busy couple of days of friends and family and just having people in the neighborhood in.

And then as people were working, I called each employee in and had a conversation with them one-on-one. We went over all of their hours. I gave them a last paycheck and gave them some extra cash and basically told them that, “You know what? I don’t know if we’re going to be open next week. This might be the last day. And I know that even though we haven’t even started, I just don’t have a good feeling about this and I’m really sorry.” And if they had other job opportunities elsewhere then please, don’t let this delay be a factor in moving forward. Because at the end of the day people have financial responsibilities and obligations.

So it was a very hard conversation to have. And they left and they packed all the food with them. And I stayed back and I stared at the wall for the remainder of the day. And I think I probably bunkered up in the restaurant for three days and was just cooking up a storm with whatever I had left. My fiance, who was also my partner, was like, “Who are you cooking for?” I’m like, “I don’t know.” This is just my way of just mourning or just coping. The only thing that really soothes me is just being able to be in the kitchen. So I think I just needed that time just to process and reassess.

And as I was in the kitchen alone, I see a lot of neighbors come by and they’d peek in and one of our gates was open because I left it open just so that we can still be able to receive mail and get knocks on the window. I’d open it and my neighbor is like, “Oh, hey, are you open?” I said, “No, but I did make a pot of soup today, so if you want some I’d be more than happy to share it with you.” So then two to three bowls a day turned to a dozen, two dozen, and I figured, you know what? Maybe I’m going to try this takeout thing, since there’s a little interest in it. If it just means me feeding a dozen of my neighbors upstairs, I’m going to do it just because what else am I going to do? While we try to figure out what’s going on and how the government’s going to be handling things. And-

Amanda Kludt: So have you just been doing takeout ever since?

HN: I’ve been doing takeout ever since. The first week I said, the first five days it was just me. I was the one answering the phone. I updated our phone number, which we never did before, and the phone was ringing. I was like, “This is really strange.” Having to answer the phone and then also having to cook and then also having to take orders. And so it was a one-man band for the first four or five days. And we’ve been really lucky with the support of the community, mainly just our neighbors.

And so, I decided, okay, well maybe I’ll diversify the menu a little bit and not just offer a chicken pho or just grilled protein over rice and maybe offer two to three things or four things and with that I would be able to bring on maybe one of my prep cooks and be able to provide hours. At that point we weren’t making any money and we still aren’t making any money, but if I’m able to stay afloat and just be able to pay for food costs and be able to take care of just one employee, that really was what kept me going and pushing forward. And for that first week that we were open, it was mainly neighborhood people that are within walking distance that lived upstairs, and I had so many requests for deliveries, but we just couldn’t handle it. I think about the insurance and then having to hire a driver and it all just didn’t make sense. I just couldn’t afford it.

HN: So then I reached out to... I started actually researching. I had a few people reach out from Grubhub and from Seamless, and then I did some research on my own and decided to sign up with Caviar because they had a promotional discount for the first 30 days.

DG: You went with Caviar because they offered you a free month?

HN: Yes, Caviar and DoorDash. I mean, from what I understand, DoorDash acquired Caviar a couple months ago.

DG: Yeah.

HN: Although they’re operating under the same umbrella, they’re very different in terms of the services that they provide, the support that they provide. And both are offering a promotional 30 day period, which is ending actually next week. So then I have to make a decision as to whether or not I’m going to continue, because with the menu that... I mean, our menu changes quite often, because I’m just using whatever resources I have. And even with our purveyors, there’s some days they’ll have produce and some days they won’t be able to have the things that we request just because their supply line isn’t working or has some kind of delay. So with that, that dictates our menu and I created the menu with the community in mind. So we’re already offering very discounted prices. And so, you think about the high commission that these delivery companies are charging, there’s just no way that I would be able to continue because I’d be operating at a negative.

AK: What are the commissions compared to one another? Like Caviar versus?

HN: 30% is a standard. I know that a couple days ago there was some announcements that were made that they were offering a 50% discount through the end of, I believe May, but still you’re looking at 15%. And with where I’m at right now, our margins are pretty much, there are no margins. It’s like I’m working just to provide hours and just... It’s really at a break-even point for me. I mean, I haven’t even looked at our latest utility bill. So, I mean I don’t know what that is and I’ve been able to factor and control certain food costs, but in terms of utility, I haven’t had an opportunity to sit down and update to see what that cost is and if it’s even responsible for me to continue operating after everything is said and done.

So I don’t know. I’ve really just been taking everything on a day-to-day basis, not knowing what... If we were to completely cut off Caviar and DoorDash because of the commission rates, how many people are actually going to drive or walk or be able to come and pick up their food? Because that essentially will be the deciding factor of whether or not we would be able to continue.

DG: What are some of the aspects of delivery that have been challenging? What’s it like picking up even takeout containers and stuff? It’s crazy?

HN: It’s crazy. I mean, I started doing Restaurant Depot runs just out of boredom and it just was a sense of comfort for me. So every morning around seven o’clock I pick up a rental car for the week and I would drive down and just wander between the aisles and sometimes I would purchase things, sometimes I wouldn’t purchase things, but just being there just felt like it was a routine. And I mean, the first two weeks was relatively assessable. I mean, all the containers that I usually use were available. But in the last four to five days, my Restaurant Depot ones have been very frustrating because now a lot of the shelves are starting to be empty. And as I’m talking to a lot of the employees there, they used to be able to tell me, “Oh, okay, on Tuesdays we get this, on Thursdays we get that.” Now they’re like, “We don’t know when we’re going to get this or if we’re ever going to get it back.” Just because of the way that things are right now.

So then, this morning I went and I hoarded as much as I could into the truck that I have. And I plan on doing another run later on this afternoon, just with that vision of the empty shelves in mind, thinking that, “Okay, if I’m going to continue this I need to be able to provide containers that can safely transport the items that I’m providing.”

AK: How long do you think you’ll be able to keep running the restaurant like this?

HN: For as long as I can continue feeding people. We’ve been very fortunate to be able to partner alongside with some organizations that have been able to provide some stipends and funding to be able to, per plate, just to help with some of our costs. But again, if I’m not able to purchase these containers, these to-go containers, I won’t be able to provide the delivery or takeout services to the community or the hospitals or anybody for that matter.

DG: So what’s going on with the hospitals? How did that all get started?

HN: So I try to respond to as many messages I can. And I get a lot of people that go, “Hey, I’m a nurse. I’m a doctor. I’m a pharmacist. I’m this.” All these healthcare professionals are sending messages into my personal as well as our business account asking for assistance. And some of them are just really finding a person to vent to and they’re like, “Hey, I worked X amount of hours. This is what’s going on in our unit. The morale is is going down. We could really use a warm comforting meal.”

And so I started doing very small-scale deliveries, just based on the first few people that had messaged me and based on our capabilities. Because, like I said, that first week it was just basically me cooking, cleaning, packing, answering the phone calls, doing the deliveries. And as we started to bring back staff and have the support, I then had a message one day from Frontline and he’s like, “Hey, I’ve been a fan of the restaurant and I’m part of this nonprofit organization. Do you have a few minutes to talk?” They’re receiving donations from private entities. And what they are essentially doing is providing restaurants with resources, monetary resources, to bring back their staff. And then in turn, the restaurant can help provide more meals to these hospitals and these healthcare workers.

And so, we started off very small with about 50 meals a day, and then were approached by another nonprofit and then also referred to by another nonprofit. And now going on our second week, it’s Tuesday today, yesterday we sent out 245 meals. This week we’re slated for about 1500 meals between the two nonprofit organizations as well as some of my personal funding and some of the donations that my partners and friends back home sent. And so, I don’t know, it’s still very new. I’m still trying to figure out the logistics and how I’ll be able to accommodate, because obviously you don’t want to say no to anyone, but at the same time it’s been very difficult for me to get out of bed every morning at the time I usually do when I... Like last night I returned at 1:00 AM from a midnight delivery. And this morning I woke up at 6:00 and I just don’t want to burn out. I want to be able to continue serving but also be very conscious and be able to set aside time to take care of myself. But-

AK: Yeah, it’s an impossible situation that people are being put into. You go into this thinking you’re going to open a restaurant and instead you end up cooking for frontline workers and working by yourself and it’s insane.

HN: It’s been hard and I feel like I’m almost keeping myself busy and distracting myself from...

AK: It’s so impossible.

HN: I feel like if I just have a moment alone just to think and absorb about things, I have little breakdowns like this where I just sit and I think and I cry and it’s not that it’s a bad thing, it’s okay to be able to process and feel these emotions, but I don’t want to perpetuate it. I’m a firm believer of just manifesting certain energy and just being more in control of your mood and your perspective.

DG: It must be really hard because I feel like there’s so many people trying so many different kind of organizational structures and everyone’s got some idea of, we’re going to feed hospital workers. I feel like someone like you that’s says yes to a lot of those things, you must be getting pulled in infinite directions.

HN: And the numbers keep on going. It’s just every day I log onto Instagram on our social media site, it’s like, Hey, I’m this and, Hey I’m that. Before it used to be one a week, one a day, now it’s, on average, I get five to six different requests and I feel so bad because a good percentage of them are from small hospitals in Brooklyn or hospitals up in the Bronx and the Harlem where people, they don’t get the kind of coverage and support that a lot of the main hospitals in the city do. And those are the ones that you want to help the most because they don’t have the resources.

I’m willing to do that, but at the same time it’s like, “Oh wait, but I also have dinner service and the community that I’ve committed to, to takeout and deliveries.” And it’s important to maintain continuity and not just be like, “Oh, today I’m open, tomorrow I’m not. Oh, today I might be closed for half of the day, but I’ll be back in a couple hours.” It’s hard. It’s hard. But it’s also hard saying no to people, because there’s a lot of people that are struggling right now and truly need the assistance a lot more than I do.

DG: If you commit to bringing 100 meals or something to a hospital that’s not as well covered, can you then report that back to one of the organizations that you’re working with and then have those meals covered financially?

HN: Yes. So I actually reached out to my contact over at Frontline, was like, “Hey, I’ve been getting an overwhelming response and just people reaching out through email and through Instagram.” And even though they’re very well funded at this point, I feel like their resources are also very limited. There’s just so much that they can do because a lot of the contacts that I communicate with are donating their time to this nonprofit, and they all have full-time jobs. So, I mean, they may be like, “Okay, we will take on these three hospitals.” But it won’t be until maybe two weeks down the line. Whereas it’s like, well, if I have a slow lunch period on Thursday, I want to go to that hospital on Thursday and not have to wait for things to be answered into the system and be looped in through a process, right?

DG: How much can they actually provide per meal?

HN: It’s been ranging. Some organizations offer $10 a meal. Some organizations offer up to $17 a meal. A lot of the hospitals, from my understanding, their cafeterias have completely shut down. And prior to the shutdown, they’re getting just sandwiches and just very, very simple soups and different breads. And when I think about it, it’s just, these are the people that are helping our city a better, they’re risking their life every day coming into work, working long hours, just as long as we are in the kitchen. And they also, more than anyone, deserve a nice meal. To be able to sit down and just enjoy something that was made with a lot more love and care, more so than just a salad that you get from the cafeteria. But although the budget is there and the help is there, I just feel as though that it’s just... When you account for the labor costs and all the other costs that we have to deal with at the end of the day, it’s a lot more substantial than what we’re getting in. But we’re doing our best to try to make everything work.

AK: Aside from the hospital work and the charity and then I guess the delivery business, is there any other support your business can get? Are you able to apply for any of the stimulus relief funds or are you not eligible because you don’t have a payroll right now? How does that work with a new business?

HN: It’s been really exciting to see all these relief funds that are available. But unfortunately we aren’t eligible, just because, I believe there’s two funds where if you were in business prior to, I think it was mid-February. But with us we were in such a weird position with gas and with opening and just not knowing what the official date was going to be, we didn’t have anything established until much later on in March. And for that reason, we just didn’t make the cut for a lot of the grants and a lot of the help that is available, just because we weren’t open and operating as a fully functional restaurant yet.

AK: That sucks.

DG: When we’re through and back when we’re in boom times, are you going to permit yourself to have a real opening day, an opening night?

HN: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, everyone that comes by to pick up food, they peek through the window and they’re like, “Oh, we can’t wait to be able to sit down.” And I’m like, “I can’t wait to personally serve people.” I mean, we built the restaurant with an open kitchen in mind so that we can provide that experience, not only just for the staff, but also for the consumers. Or they can be able to like, “Oh, my food’s being made. I can watch my meat being grilled or my soup being scooped out.” And just being able to have people in enjoying the atmosphere, I for sure am going to have an official grand opening date where we can officially celebrate as a full service restaurant and not just a takeout window where have to stay six to ten feet apart and have to really focus to be able to hear what people are mumbling through the masks. Yeah, we very much look forward to that day.

AK: Thank you so much for sharing your story with us and for all the hard work you’re putting in. It’s truly incredible.

HN: Thank you so much for having me.

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[servicescore]

5 Ways to Discover Drift in your Customer Experience

What’s the difference between a good and bad Customer Experience?  

I was thinking about this after a small (but unwelcome) change at a sandwich shop I visit often.  After coming four days a week for the past year, something was different.  When I tapped my phone on the card reader to pay, a new message asked me to select the amount of “tip” I wanted to add.  Suddenly, I had to decide with a line of customers behind me. Even though I believe in great tips for great service, I was annoyed that I was now being asked to pay extra for service after I stand in line to order, pay at the counter, fill my own drink, get my own chips, clear my own table and toss out my own trash. In other words, am I now expected to pay a tip like I’m at a full-service restaurant when I’m not getting any of the same services?  And since I’m there often, do I really want to add $10 a week to my lunch budget for the same meal and service?

Here’s what bothered me the most: it felt like the rapport I had built with the cashier over many months seemed to evaporate when I hit “none” to the Tip Amount question and her eyes dropped and shoulders slumped.  So, within a few seconds, I went from feeling like a good customer to Ebenezer Scrooge.  Is it just me being “cheap”?  I began to notice that I wasn’t the only one that seemed to feel annoyed when that tip message appeared. Especially with older customers, there was frequent face twisting when they hit the “none” button and our cashier, again, looked crestfallen.  I’m guessing the change happened because the chain started working with delivery services, like Uber Eats and GrubHub, and had to make a change for driver tips.  But I wonder if they considered how this might impact the experience for customers paying at the counter.

All of this got me thinking about “drift” – small changes upon small changes that can add up to a big gap between a customer’s expectations and reality.  I was first introduced to the concept of drift early in my restaurant career as I was being promoted to Director of Operations, when our CEO gave me outstanding direction: “You have one job now – prevent drift in my restaurants”.  Over the years, as a student of Customer Experience, I’ve looked at ways to identify these small, potentially harmful changes. The old rules of strategic advantage don’t apply anymore – we can’t wait for customer complaints or sales declines to know we have unhealthy drift. We have to define, then proactively protect, the core elements of the customer experience that customers value most.  Here’s 5 ideas on how to get it done:

1.    Define the Critical Few

In discovering drift, it’s important to first make sure your team knows what’s non-negotiable in the delivery of your customer experience. You can’t monitor everything, nor should you.  Understanding those critical few aspects of your service delivery that creates loyalty is the key.  Start from the perspective of your customers: where can you be so truly great that your customers will pay – and continue to pay for your services?  A resource we love is the book, “Uncommon Service”, where Frances Frei and Anne Morriss show how service must become a competitive weapon, not a damage-control function. That means weaving service tightly into every core decision a company makes.  This includes deciding on where your brand will be truly great and where you will be intentionally bad compared to competition (such as letting the other guys be great at self-service or low-price).  The most important part of defining these critical few is building a process culture that ensures zero tolerance for “drift” in these core elements of your brand.

2.    Who’s Responsible for the Customer Experience?

As the old saying goes, “If it’s everyone’s job, it’s nobody’s job”.  Insights from the 2019 Annual Franchise Marketing Report, just published by Franchise Update Media, shows that in franchised brands, responsibility for the Customer Experience is most often shared, based on a national survey of franchisor marketing leaders.  Specifically, when respondents were asked which department manages the “Customer Experience”, 45% shared that it is managed by multiple departments (with 35% stating that Operations manages and 15% stating that Marketing oversees).  Having clear accountability for measurable aspects of the customer experience is a key to making sure your critical standards are vigorously protected.

3.    Seek and Act on Customer Feedback

Once you’ve defined the core processes that deliver your differentiated customer experience and defined accountability, it’s time to build the mechanisms to help make sure they’re being delivered.  Of course, you can look at sales trends, call volume and product mix, but if these lagging metrics are decreasing, you’re probably too late to easily make improvements.  Seeking customer feedback in ways that make it easy for customers to share is important; outreach surveys via phone, email and mail are great, as are surveys in your brand app and on websites.  Social media listening and monitoring online reviews are also key to both learning consumer sentiment as well taking the opportunity to join the conversation.

4.    Consider the Root Causes

It’s easy to blame poor training or bad hiring when staff members take shortcuts or make changes that can impact the customer experience, but these tweaks can also be made by leadership, well-intended to benefit the business.  Managers that cut service staff, ignore employee credential gaps or skimp on ingredients might see a fast benefit to the bottom line – but, over time, they’ll see their customer loyalty erode. So, part of preserving a stellar customer experience is to understand the pressures that might lead employees to drift – with the support of managers or owners:

·     Franchise Satisfaction:  Franchise Business Review (FBR) recently shared powerful insights gained from 23,604 franchisee satisfaction surveys completed in 2018.  They found that brands with high satisfaction dramatically outperform brands with lower satisfaction on every key financial metric for a brand, including unit growth, turnover and – most importantly – franchisee income.  In fact, highly satisfied franchisees (top quartile) had almost double the income vs. less satisfied franchisees (bottom quartile).  Knowing this can tell you about your operation’s potential for drift in many ways.  Most obvious is economic – simply put, if the business is making a good income, there is less financial pressure to cut corners in any area, including customer experience.  More broadly, highly satisfied franchisees are less likely to allow drift.  As FBR’s CEO Eric Sites puts it, “Engaged franchisees participate, are passionate about the business and feel a deep connection to the brand.” 

·     Recruiting Pressures:  What impact can a great economy have on drift?  With unemployment rates nearing a 50-year low, recruiting and retaining qualified staff is a challenge.  Being able to merely fill shifts is difficult enough, but finding those stars with the core values the brand needs to deliver a special customer experience is extremely tough when candidates are scarce.

·     Cost Pressures: tougher recruiting often leads to higher wages.  Combine this with other rising costs of insurance, regulation and commodities and the economic incentive to find faster, cheaper and easier ways to serve customers heats up.

·     Competitive Pressures:  Moves by others in the industry to charge new fees, reduce service aspects or modify products can seem like justification for managers and owners to make their own changes – even if their brand leaders are trying to hold firm on core aspects of the service delivery.

5.    Outsource your Eyes and Ears:  

Yes, most brands have customer service supervisors, trainers and field consultants charged with preventing drift.  These internal roles are important, but have limitations because their perspective is just that – internal.  Their impact grows exponentially when they have the benchmarking data, industry insights and technology tools that make their jobs more efficient and effective. For example, online audit platforms can help onsite visits result in uncovering small, but potentially catastrophic examples of drift in your customer experience.  The leading online audit platform, FranchiseBlast, recently published “59 Customer Service Audit Questions Your Franchise needs to Know.” These questions, from a variety of types of businesses, help auditors focus on items that directly impact the customer experience (such as speed of service, staff offering friendly greetings to guests) as well as less direct, but still impactful elements of the overall experience (each crew member wearing a clean uniform, background music sound quality, saying thank you after every transaction).  At ServiceScore, we review recordings of actual phone call inquiries to thousands of businesses so that we can provide brands with real-life call conversion metrics, brand compliance concerns, ideas for new products/services and more – all from listening to (literally) the voice of the customer.  

If drift is when identified early, these small changes can usually be reversed through great coaching. Even better, it can be the spark of an idea that leads to positive changes in the customer experience. Knowing what’s truly important to your customers and leveraging the right tools can help identify these opportunities – and take the lead in protecting those critical aspects that create customers for life.

References:

Franchise Blast Customer Service Questions: franchiseblast.com/customer-service-audit

Uncommon Service:  https://www.amazon.com/Uncommon-Service-Putting-Customers-Business/dp/1422133311

Annual Franchise Marketing Report:  https://afmr.franchiseupdate.com/

Franchise Business Review:  https://tour.franchisebusinessreview.com/the-importance-of-franchisee-satisfaction-and-engagement/

[uicyoulater]

Yonsei How To Pt. 16 - Things to do before you go/things that will make your life a little easier

I know that was a long-ass title, but I just wanted to put together a list of things/apps/etc. that you can do now that will make your life transition going to Korea a little easier.

1. Add a Korean keyboard to your phone and computer

This is easy to do on your phone by just going to keyboard settings. To install on your computer, search online for a Korean language pack that will work on your OS. This adds the keyboard, fonts in your programs, and some minimal spell check. 

Once you do that, I suggest adding some keyboard stickers to your laptop. Since the character placement on the keyboards isn’t easy to memorize at first, you can get a reference photo and stick on the stickers to help yo when you want to type on Korean. You can get them for pretty cheap on places like Amazon. 

2. If you’re an American/don’t use metric usually, learn.

I have my phone set to kilos and kilometers instead of pounds and miles. It doesn’t make too much of a difference, but everything is measured in metric so it’s just easier if you can convert in your head. I still have my phone set in Fahrenheit, but I just prefer it. I’m not bad at the conversion there. 

3. Learn your Korean clothing size

I am not Korean-sized by any means, so I can’t just walk up to a store and buy free size. I also pretty much refuse to order clothes online unless they’re t-shirts. There are three things you should know in Korean/metric: height, weight, and shoe size. Shoes are measured in mm and you can find a conversion chart online. 

For conversion reference, I wear US size 8 clothes, I’m 5′6″, and I’m a size 9.5 shoe (usually). I wear a large, when available, in Korea. For sports clothes and jackets they measure sizes in CM so I wear a size 170 because I’m 168cm tall. For shoes, I generally wear a 260-265, but I don’t often wear Korean shoes because they don’t sell much in my size.

4. Learn to read Hangul

Like legit, my parents are going to Korea for a week next year and I’m teaching them to read Hangul. It’s no joke just learn it. 

5. Learn what apps don’t work in Korea

Some apps will change, like the availability of some content on Netflix or youtube. Other apps will be less effective than in other countries like Google maps. Some apps or services don’t work at all for various reasons. Spotify doesn't work for me since I’m registered for my account in the US. Uber doesn’t work because there are like 0 drivers. 

6. Find new apps!

1 - Get Line or Kakao. Kakao is preferable. (English)

2 - Get Daum/Kakaomaps instead of Google (Not in English)

3 - Get the subway app (English) 

Optional

Yogiyo - grubhub for Korea (Korean)

Bus app - depends on which one you use but they just have schedules and maps. 

Other - Since I have a KT phone there are some apps that make life easier that are just auto-installed and I don’t know what they are

[ebrainy]

Is Food Delivery Safe?

I have been watching and adhering to the protocols of my state with regards to the  COVID-19 pandemic.  I stay home and when I do go out avoid crowds, wear gloves and a mask and get in and out of open stores as quickly as possible.

I am happy to report that I was able to find napkins, facial tissues, disinfectant, antacid and bleach today. They were not the brands I usually purchase but social distancing makes fewer trips a necessity.

My daughter had a birthday last week and had food delivery for lunch and dinner. I was wondering is food delivery safe? I saw a Papa John’s commercial that featured a contact free delivery. The link shows exactly what happens.

McDonalds has teamed up with UberEats and DoorDash when you have a hankering for a burger. Burger King has a delivery service as well. Wendy’s uses GrubHub and PostMates for delivery.

Grocery stores have delivery. If you are a Prime member, Whole Foods Market delivers. So does Stop & Shop, Kroger, and Publix has curbside pickup. Walmart has next day delivery and Target has DriveUp.

My concern is the cleanliness of UberEats and Door Dash vehicles and if the driver’s are tested for COVID-19.  Are they working when they are sick?  Are they wearing masks or gloves? What passengers have they carried? Do they have alcohol based wipes?

Domino’s model has been food delivery and it doesn’t look like on their website that their have been any changes.

Instacart “shoppers” are threatening to strike today saying delivery service puts them at risk to coronavirus exposure and that the company should offer more protections, including hazard pay.

Right now, Instacart says anyone diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into mandatory isolation or quarantine will get up to 14 days of pay. The company says it is also offering access to cash bonuses amid the app’s busiest month in its history.

My favorite restaurant has curbside pickup if I venture out again this week.

Think before you hit that send button. Be safe.

    from US Food Safety https://ift.tt/3bDG2o4 Is Food Delivery Safe? US Food Safety via 1best recipe https://ift.tt/2wG7L8S

[baileysayswhat]

I know I kinda did a recap already from Oct ’18-19 – and I was going to write one of my rambling, lovable, GIF-heavy recap posts but I kind of like this bullet points idea.

I looked back through my calendar and feel like 2019 had a lot of wonderful in it. It was a solid year. Here’s a chronological look:

January

Rang in 2019 by watching Millie & Stanley, 2 cantankerous and lovable neighbor pugs. Also got food poisoning.

My first MINt team (Dec ’18-Feb ’19): Abominable SnowMINts

Playing with Pinafore (Nov ’18-Oct ’19) at CSz

Volleyball w Apple buds on team “How I Set Your Mother”

Continuing to teach Level 1 Krav Maga classes at Titan Gym

I go to work on Polar Vortex day! It’s pretty quiet.

February

Promotion to Senior Sales Executive at Grubhub

I’d only been there 10 months!

Flew to Phoenix for family time

Decided to visit the AZ office since my boss was in town too (for actual work)

Then worked in the office for 3 days

Work paid for my flight back

I felt v. v. fancy.

My parents drove 3.5 hours each way for me to see the Grand Canyon. On first sight walking up to the rim I cried. How is anything that vast and majestic? Whew. Full stop.

Sedona was wonderful and kooky and I need to go back.

Visit to best/favorite KBBQ – Cho Sun Ok – in Chicago with Neal AND we went to a concert – Dean Lewis & SYML

  March 

Started Crossfit at Windy City Strength and Conditioning

KBBQ at the same restaurant – Cho Sun Ok – 2 weeks after Neal BUT with Kalin.

I still don’t know how this happened but my stomach ain’t complaining about it.

Started final ID class w UW-Stout.

It will be the hardest class I’ve ever done in my life.

I just don’t know it yet.

Due to this ^^ took sabbatical from teaching Krav at Titan Gym

Flew to Dayton to see Trace/Dinah and Xander/Abs (PLUS YOU, COTY) and I’m so glad I did.

April

Took a Music Improv workshop through MINt with Alex

I sang a song about how I still have a Washington State Driver’s License but mid-song realized it was really was about how I missed home and cried in public, in a workshop. I’M FINE.

Went to a Cubs game IN A BOX for work

Yes, it was v chill and fancy.

Cast on second MINt team: BlooMINt Onion

Alex & Jake from the Little Rock crew came to Chicago

We get Old Fashioneds at the Broken Shaker

This is the best Old Fashioned in the city. I am convinced.

I will not be moved.

Interviewed for dream job while still in school for said job field.

Got dream job.

May

Started dream job

Saw Hamilton w Josh.

We are in the second row.

I immediately want to see it again. I do not.

It closes in 2 weeks (aka Jan 15, 2020) from now LETS GO

Bekah Brown (and Potato and Sully) in town!

We roam and nap and laugh.

Sat in with Oh Cecelia at iO twice

Being asked to sit in is bananas nice and I have done it several times this year with different teams. Thank you everyone for your trust in my make-believe!

Went to PHX for work to train 5/13 class

Do not feel prepared as I JUST started said job.

People are v nice.

I got upgraded to a suite and neither of my 2 bosses did. BIZLIFE.

Abby (L&D Boss) and I do not eat bread bowls from Panera by the hotel pool, WHICH I WAS PROMISED would happen. Still sad.

Officially resigned from Titan Gym/teaching Krav due to new job

Originating dream job position and possibly traveling every 2 weeks for it just wasn’t good for students, for the gym or for me. But I miss y’all.

Saw Falsettos (Broadway) show

it was NOT a comedy

I was NOT prepared

AND if meme photos of me crying on the train alone after ever come out it is Todd’s fault. The end.

Finish/graduate from UW-Stout’s Instructional Design Graduate Certificate program

I survived the aforementioned hardest class in m’life.

Genuinely sad/miss my group TO THIS DAY.

June

Mom & Dad come to Chicago –

Father’s Day

Field Museum

Architect River Cruise

CHICAGO HOT DOGS!

Had huge audition for something I really wanted. Felt good about it. Didn’t get it.

Did a 5 Things CSz workshop

July

Performed for the first time w Ben, Nicole & Nate as music improv team AirBRB

Had lunch with Toni Berry, writer, bud, fellow Sagittarius, former Apple co-worker

By ‘lunch’ I mean we hung out for like 4 hours. WE ARE LONG WINDED.

Decided to apply (and got) a workshop spot with RIFF; a music improv short form show that performs at iO.

Did improv set in a church service with Susan

it was a planned set; we didn’t just jump up and start, I swear

Lunch with Jenean, former work wife and also, strangely, my first time eating poke

I now love poke

WHAT TOOK ME SO LONG

Fly to Washington to drive to AZ with Mom & Em

August

4-Year Chicago-versary!

Me and the Bean are very happy together in a committed relationship over halfway to a common law marriage

Drive from Lynden, WA to Phoenix, AZ in 2 long days with Mom & Em

YES TWO DAYS

Teach 2nd training class in AZ for 8/5 class

Abby, L&D boss and of the 2 women I report to leaves the company. I hate this but still love her.

Sit in with Goat Milk Goddesses to perform at the Women’s Funny Fest at Stage 773

Dana comes to see me!

She’s the best.

I try my first Pole Dancing class at Brass Ring Chicago

Due to a Groupon I bought 6 months before that was about to expire 3 days later. I keep it up through EOY.

Compete in music improv competition “Verses” at Second City with AirBRB – we lose to some of my favorite people on Home Entertainment so I’m ok with it.

2nd RIFF show!

September

Audition for Anarchy, another music improv team

I don’t get it

But I know a ton of people in the room

I’m ok!

Speak to my UW-Stout instructor’s class about being hired to work in ID/Learning & Dev field as a Sales Trainer right out of our program.

Feel v accomplished.

Toggle from Crossfit back to LSAC gym by my house

Y’all CF is cool BUT MY WALLET WAS SCREAMING.

Play volleyball for Fall Season with people I met in Spring Season at Lincoln Park High School.

Catherine (Sales Boss) the second woman I love working for leaves the company. I hate this but love her.

I got her some goodbye cookies that Carrie makes and they are PERFECTION (see pic below) support Carrie she does amazing work and a percentage of every order supports a different charity every month. HERE IS HER LINK I LOVE IT. 

I got myself a massage. I am stressed/sad about the boss situation above BUT NOT THE COOKIES.

I got it on Groupon, I am fiscally responsible.

Start meal plan service to eat Keto for the month of October (officially 9/30-end of October).

Not fiscally responsible but IT IS OK.

Keto doesn’t let me eat fruit as as a Washingtonian this is a crime I do not like.

Make it the 30 days, lost 10lbs in Oct.

I get a new boss to report to on the Learning Team side at work. He seems cool although I don’t know it yet.

October

Final Pinafore show at CSz. I have the sads that this core group of people I love is done.

Yes, yes, I know we can still play together

IT WAS A GOOD BITTERSWEET THING

I know all things must end I used to watch Lost

Started some personal training with Brian at LSAC

I warn Brian I am a talker.

Brian makes me do weird double kettlebell swings. I am not good at it right away and hate it.

Literally all I do is try to make Brian laugh to get my mind off of sweating.

Guys, don’t worry. I got plenty of sweating in still.

Started an Olympic Weightlifting class with Keith at LSAC

I AM SHOCKINGLY GOOD AT THIS.

Thank you to the Crossfit gym and also Coach DeHoag at LC, I guess.

Cry at work 3x in one day after feeling overwhelmed w my 2 bosses being gone and the announcement we are upping our hiring aka much bigger training classes.

1. After a meeting

2. In a stairwell mid-afternoon

3. In first 1:1 with new boss

Is this a record and if so please get me a medal

I go to DC for the first time and get to hang with David, Bekah, Adam & Dana (and Millie)

I needed this.

Performed in Hocus Pocus Redacted at the Music Box as Allison.

 Yes, yabbos

November

Work tells me they approved hiring a 2nd person to do my role; we begin applications/interviews

Robbie becomes 2nd trainer at work and I begin trying to explain how/why I do what I do.

Audition for CSz & cast onto new Rec League team: Potluck

Watch Heather, Dan & Jess’s Bloody Christmas Carol show

My friends are fancy and sing & dance really well.

I came straight from a volleyball game and am very sweaty smushed next to strangers in this small theater.

See Robbie Ellis’s truly hilarious orchestra with Ben.

We fancy dress up.

We are seated in the front row.

We did not know we would be in the front row.

Thanksgiving week is my first week ‘off’ of training since starting my job on 5/1; I get so much work done and also contract a cold.

I do nothing except sit in my apartment alone for Thanksgiving, make myself mashed potatoes and I love it.

December

Record size massive training class (for us)

I am responsible for the learning & logistics of 20 people and gain (probably) 17 gray hairs.

Work approves a 3rd (Arizona) and 4th (Philadelphia) trainer; applications & interviews begin

I start seeing a therapist – it helps.

Nothing specific; I’m just noticing circular behaviors as I look back over my shoulder for 30+ years.

Added to the ensemble of RIFF

After performing as a sub several times since that workshop in July!

I’m added in the same class as Ben, Sarah & Will who I feel so honored to sing (and rhyme) with.

I fly home for 12 days to Lynden, WA

I turn 32 sitting at home, surrounded by my family.

I tell my family I plan on climbing Kilimanjaro in October 2020. I announce it at my birthday dinner so I can’t back out of it. NAME IT AND CLAIM IT BBS.

Yes, another blog post will come to flesh this ^^ out.

Performed with Upfront Theatre’s ensemble, including Ryan Stiles, for the 2nd time in Bellingham on the day after Christmas. My family is there seeing me do what I love and I am happy.

2019 Overall

Performances – with Pinafore, with MINt teams, RIFF and so many other opportunities to sit in and play with teams. Feeling grateful.

Shows – I saw countless shows; CSz matches, iO & SC improv, staged shows, musicals, Broadway, even just at movie theaters! Ya girl is stuffed full of stories. Also I have crazy talented friends.

People – I saw family 4 times! That’s almost a record for one year! Lunches, grocery store runs, shows and coffee times with so many friends too.

Health – Got my first ever stitches (shoulder), which was a weird first to have post-30. Overall healthy but somehow got food poisoning 3x this year. Probably won’t be asked to be on Bear Grylls show because of it ever.

Work – very happy to be working in the Learning & Development field as a trainer, instructional designer and general weirdo. Finally. GH has been very good to me.

Mental state – I’m pausing here and looking around my house, just thinking about this one.

I’m proud to be taking steps to correct patterns and behaviors that are unhealthy. Seeing a therapist that gives homework to work on between sessions is great.

I’m improving at recognizing progress as progress even when I wish the progress was bigger.

I’m proud/terrified to be setting the goal of climbing Kilimanjaro in October 2020. It scares me and excites me. More to come on this!

I’m thrilled to be an ensemble member on a long-term team. This has been a goal since I got to Chicago – I don’t need to drive my work to SNL or Mainstage. I just want to be on a consistent team of talented friends that I laugh with and improve my skills.

Hiya, 2020. Let’s go.

She’s Solid. I know I kinda did a recap already from Oct '18-19 - and I was going to write one of my rambling, lovable, GIF-heavy recap posts but I kind of like this bullet points idea.

[blockheadbrands]

From A Dude’s Dorm Room to Delivery: The Evolution of Purchasing Weed

CK Kimball of High Times Reports:

“Are we boring now?”

My boyfriend was pretty excited today. Why? Because today was the first day he had cannabis delivered. 

Ah the future. Where you can literally hop on your computer, put in an order for Humboldt sativa, maybe a few indica minis, and thirty minutes to an hour later… cannabis at your door. With taxes and fees, you definitely pay for convenience, but heavens is it nicer than code words like “1/8th of cucumber” texted to some friend of a friend with no assurances they’ll come through.

But are we boring now? 

I remember the old days when knowing who had weed was a stressor and the power you could feel as someone who “had a guy”. Never mind that “the guy” was unreliable. Never mind it was ALWAYS awkward buying weed from someone who was an acquaintance or, worse, really took the concept of being a dealer to paranoid highs. I can’t be the only one who got a tongue lashing for accidentally saying “marijuana” out loud in a dealers’ presence. We’d nod our heads at early legalization activism and wistfully imagine traveling to Amsterdam. Man, cannabis could be a real serious subject for something we used in the back of the Poor Billy’s Seafood Restaurant kitchen.

But times changed and they changed fast. In 2013, I moved from Hawaii, where weed was practically currency, to Los Angeles into a studio apartment with my then-boyfriend. I had no job, no friends, and no money. I found an 1/8th of weed in my travel duffel bag, stowed away accidentally, that had somehow escaped both my attention and the TSA’s. For a little while, I had a break from white-knuckling my kneecaps looking for work. Those first few weeks in LA were filled with smoking up after a day of begging for work door-to-door and then hiking for an hour or two until the dark of night settled. I started to feel like I could maybe pull it together in this city. Then the 1/8th was cashed and I was left with the greatest enemy to any new big city transplant:

My unending, anxious thoughts.

I wanted to get back my cannabis break time before I snapped. This was the time of medical marijuana. Make an appointment with a doctor working part-time for a dispensary, get your certificate or card, and head down to the dispensary. I went back and forth on it. My boyfriend wasn’t a big cannabis guy and I still wasn’t rocking too many friends, so I didn’t really have anyone who could describe the experience. So I did what I always do. I over-thought it. Armed with as much knowledge on the process as Google could recommend, I made my appointment and headed in. 

Maybe unsurprisingly, I was really nervous. At the time, there was a rumor that getting your certificate could put you on a federal government list and we weren’t that far past from the documentaries showcasing cancer patients getting a federal shake down over medical marijuana. Plus, honestly, I was afraid of being embarrassed. I was ready to explain my plight of horrible menstrual issues (true) and insomnia (also true) and how cannabis had been my saving grace… but also scared the doctor would, I don’t know, stand up and tell me they KNEW I was full of it.

Boy was I wrong. I was checked in, hung out in the waiting room and, after checking my blood pressure, it was suggested I ingest cannabis as opposed to smoking. And that was it! I was off to the dispensary, certificate in hand (I never paid for the card), where I waited in the front room for twenty minutes because of the one-in-one-out rule. Regardless, I walked out of a store with cannabis. I had to stop myself from texting friends—I mean that’s just tacky. It was so convenient! But also… sterile? As I grew more accustomed to the process, I began to feel a little weird. I liked the availability and the assurance on the quality of product, but found myself turned off by the check-in process, harsh fluorescent lighting, and rules of dispensaries for medical marijuana. A pharmacy for cannabis wasn’t what we were fantasizing about while picking seeds from an overpriced sandwich baggie of weed all that time ago in college.

From Medical to Recreational: The Evolution of Purchasing Weed

Then came the Adult Use of Marijuana Act of 2016 and the dispensaries for medicinal marijuana began to transition to just plain old dispensaries. In those early days, your medical marijuana card (or bedraggled certificate if you didn’t pay extra for an actual card) would not only get you in the store, it gave you access to product with a higher THC level. Nice. I was cool again getting my special “M” stamp before waiting in line for my turn at the counter. Soon that was phased out and the taxes phased in. Everything comes with a price and in the case of legalized weed, it was a literal price. When I visited my hometown across the country, I regaled those around me of my experience with legal weed to the scoffs of my former dealer friend: “God, for those prices it hardly seems worth it”. I sniffed back that I prefer to pay for convenience but internally I wondered: was I ok with this?

There’s a growing debate around legalization and regulation where the independent growers are getting pushed out for bigger companies with backing taking their place. Were we killing something culturally or humanly important by going along with the current status quo? For convenience?

Looking at the state of cannabis procurement, the answer to that question is complicated. With legalization came the rise of companies like MedMen and Eaze. Companies who make finding and enjoying cannabis as easy as a Grubhub delivery. And with them came weed tourism. People from all over the country traveling to LA to jump on a weed tour bus where the blunts come in handfuls and the final destination is… MedMen. Slowly the dispensaries relaxed their rules. You still have to register but you only need a license. The interior design became more welcoming and less antiseptic. The people working could have been (and sometimes were) your friends from the scene. But also, dispensaries became more corporate. Matching shirts for employees or rewards programs. Partnerships with other companies. Billboards for cannabis varieties, not just the dispensaries. Then, finally, the rise of cannabis delivery. Ridiculous fees and taxes, but the option to have cannabis (all varieties) delivered to your home up to 10pm at night felt like a gift. 

Yet the other evening, as I waited for my card to go through my delivery driver’s reader, I thought of the state of this convenience. What began as a plea to ease regulation on cannabis in light of its benefits and in consideration to those incarcerated over it is now completely corporate. The first cannabis cafe has opened in LA and I’ve still never been to Amsterdam. Is this… ok?

I don’t know. But I’m not going back to buying a 1/4 that’s half stem from a dude at Burger King. I have my dignity back and I’m willing to risk becoming a little dull for it. Though I am all in for cannabis farmers’ markets.

TO READ MORE OF THIS ARTICLE ON HIGH TIMES, CLICK HERE.

https://hightimes.com/culture/dudes-dorm-room-delivery-evolution-purchasing-weed/

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On the internet Restaurant Advertising How you can Make use of Daily Bargains

Just how do I utilize the net to bring in even more consumers?" is among one of the most constant concerns asked by restaurant and also bar proprietors. Providing solutions like Google Places could aid dining establishments obtain discovered on Google. Social media like Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare as well as Yelp enable exploration and also communication. Web sites like Seamless, GrubHub, FoodToEat as well as Delivery.com assist own to-go and also pick-up orders. Dining establishments that take bookings can do so with Open Table. Ordr.in, SinglePlatform as well as OpenMenu assist organization a restaurant's material to numerous solutions.

Noting solutions as well as on-line purchasing internet sites have actually usually been thought about the essentials, now dining establishments progressively see e-mail advertising and marketing projects, particularly everyday offer web sites, as reliable advertising and marketing devices, states brand-new study launched by the National Restaurant Association. The research study, which was moneyed by an unlimited research study give from everyday offer website LivingSocial, examined existing restaurant advertising and marketing techniques as well as customer understandings associated with existing advertising devices.

84 percent of restaurant drivers think about restaurant-specific advertising e-mails to be efficient in raising earnings for their dining establishments, and also 78 percent of customers claimed an e-mail from a restaurant would certainly encourage them to visit that restaurant. On top of that, 63 percent of restaurant drivers claim they prepare to make use of such e-mails in the following year.

78 percent of restaurant drivers think about everyday bargains to be reliable in raising income for their dining establishments, and also 69 percent of customers stated an e-mail from an everyday bargain supplier would certainly inspire them to head to the restaurant showcased in the day-to-day offer. On top of that, 40 percent of drivers state they intend to deal with an everyday bargain carrier in the following year.

Customers are really conscious social networks as well as Internet advertising and marketing.

Customers view the least reliable initiatives to lure them to visit a restaurant consist of online promotions (58 percent), social networks (56 percent), as well as radio advertisements (56 percent).

As a bar proprietor and also a person that aids bars as well as dining establishments develop everyday bargains that are ideal for their brand name, I've invested a great deal of time assessing these bargains. For dining establishments and also bars, the allure is to obtain brand-new clients with direct exposure to a day-to-day bargain firm's enormous checklist of clients. In return for this direct exposure, offer firms take a cut of the sale prior to handing the "brand-new" consumer over to the local business.

While this research study makes the instance for why dining establishments should purchase day-to-day bargains, the number of clients in fact hang around considering any one of the reported 836 day-to-day offer e-mails they could be registered for? As well as of that number, the number of in fact transformed into repeat consumers? Undoubtedly, few. I understand I remove a lot of the everyday offer e-mails in my inbox, which you could find out more concerning on my individual blog site, Burger Conquest.

" Finding the right advertising mix is critical to success in the restaurant sector," commented James Balda, primary advertising and marketing as well as interactions police officer of the National Restaurant Association, in the happyhourspecialsyum.com short article on the research study.

I concur. Absolutely nothing could be much more real, yet counting on day-to-day bargain e-mail advertising and marketing projects to boost revenues is just reliable in drawing in brand-new, repeat consumers when made use of properly. If the establishment does not "wow" brand-new clients with their solutions, as well as locate means to re-engage them for future eating experiences, it's a loss.

I constantly advise dining establishments attach straight with these brand-new consumers as well as own future interaction with social media sites, in mix with deals as well as various other electronic projects. A good press from a 3rd event e-mail advertising companion is a good idea to do 1 to 4 times a year, relying on a restaurant's specific demands. However it's vital making certain the restaurant is branded effectively, which they are not shedding excessive loan each consumer.

When a consumer remains in the door, future interaction can be completed via a restaurant's social media networks or e-newsletter. Still, understanding which systems to utilize when is the secret. My idea is to begin by taking a look at the very best techniques to setting-up as well as making use of Google Places, Yelp, FourSquare as well as Twitter I've produced called "The Rev Meter for Social Community."

The happyhourspecialsyum.com post declares that restaurant proprietors are bewildered with the advertising choices readily available, which is most likely due to the fact that the bulk do not have an advertising and marketing or social media sites history. Putting in the time to find out ways to make use of as well as keep these devices could really feel difficult. This is one reason that day-to-day bargain websites could seem like a sensible choice- they take the upkeep from the restaurant proprietors hands.

However that is a careless, careless, careless means to run. If you are mosting likely to possess and also run a bar or restaurant, you need to dedicate the exact same initiative to advertising that you would certainly product and services or employ a person that can! FYI-- I am readily available to assist you!

On the internet Restaurant Advertising How you can Make use of Daily Bargains posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com